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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



Dames and Daughters 
OF THE French Court 
By Geraldine Brooks 

Author of ** Dames and Daughters of Colonial 
Days,^^ ** Dames and Daughters of the Young 
Republic i"*^ and ^^ Romances of Colonial Days^' 




$!tt\X> gorfe : Thomas Y. Crowell 

& Company, Publishers 



s> 



)CT 24 1904 







* «Copyright, 1904, by 
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



PEEFAOE 



MUCH has been written about French women. 
Innumerable volumes pay homage to them 
as '' Salonists," ''Queens of Society," "Celebrated 
Women." One might almost say that there is no 
end to the literature that treats of these certainly 
very charming subjects. Here and there a writer, 
notably Sainte Beuve, has told of them so appre- 
ciatively, so ultimately, that to speak after such 
authority seems almost an impertinence. 

However, it is sometimes pleasant to meet old 
friends in a new guise, even though the new guise 
be ever so simple and unpretentious. It is with 
this thought in mind that I venture to offer these 
" Dames and Daughters of the French Court." 

It may seem that there is an incongruity in the 
title. Perhaps it is not as dames and daughters, 
those terms of eminently domestic flavor, that one 
naturally thinks of French women. Nevertheless, 
in spite of their salons, their social triumphs, and 
their literary and artistic successes, these French 
women really were dames and daughters as we 
understand the words. Apart from that very 
worldly world of which they were so conspicuous a 



IV PREFACE. 

part, tliey lived interior lives and experienced fire- 
side joys and sorrows. 

In my choice of characters I have remembered 
this. I have selected from the brilliant galaxy of 
French women the natnral, the attractive, the 
lovable ones, those who seem most truly the dames 
and daughters of their country. They are 
preeminently worth}' of an intimate acquaintance, 
of friendship, of affection. One cannot meet them 
too often. It is with this recommendation that I 
present them. 

G. B. 

New Yoke, June, 1904. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Madasie de Sevigne (1626-1696) 1 

Madame de La Fayette (1634-1693) 33 

Madame Geoffrin (1699-1777) 52 

Mademoiselle de Lespinasse (1732-1776) .... Go 

Madame Roland (1754-1792) 94 

Madame Le Brun (1755-1842) 175 

Madame de Stael (1766-1817) 190 

Madame Recamier (1777-1849) 235 

Madame Valmore (1789-1859) 254 

Madame de Remusat (1780-1821) 269 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Madame de Sevign1§ Frontispiece 

{From, a 2yciinti}ig in the 3fusee de Versailles.) 

Madame de La Fayette 34 

(From a portrait by Bouterwek.) 

Madame Geoffrin 52 

{From a jjainting by Staal.) 

Mademoiselle db Lespinasse QQ 

{From a x>aintlng by CnrmonteUe.) 

Madame Roland 94 

{From a j>ainting by Goupil.) 

Madame Roland at the Guillotine IGO 

{Fro'tii aiiainting by Roger.) 

Madame Le Brun 176 

{From the painting by herself.) 

Madame Le Brdn and Her Daughter , 184 

{From the painting by herself .) 
Madame de Stael 190 

{From the painting by Mile. Godefroy.', 

Madame Recamier 236 

{From a painting by David, in the Louvre.) 

Madame Valmore 254 

{From an etching by Monzies.) 



vii 



DAMES AND DAUGHTERS OF 
THE FREiNCH COURT. 



MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 



Born at Bourbilly, Feb. 5, 1626. 
Died at Grignan, April 18, 1696. 



"It is impossible to speak of women without first putting 
one's self into a good humor by the thought of Madame de 
Sevigne." — Sainte Beuve. 

FnoM her Breton home, before ever she had 
visited Provence and Grignan Castle, Madame de 
Sevigne wrote to her daughter, the lady of the 
castle, " I have become quite at home in Grignan 
Castle. I see your rooms, I walk on your terrace, 
I go to mass in your beautiful church." 

This is not mere talk on the part of Madame de 
Sevign^. She really was at Grignan, seeing its 
rooms, walking on its terrace, going to mass in its 
beautiful church. Her imagination, more swift in 
its flight than hippogrif or Pegasus, had in a 
twinkling carried her there. 



2 MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 

It is for us who come after Madame de Sevign^ 
to make ourselves at home at " The Rochers," 
madame's Breton castle, even as madame made her- 
self at home at Grignan, to take the journey thither 
on wings such as madame employed — the wings of 
imagination. 

The old moss-grown chateau, breathing that air 
of freshness, tranquillity, and simple grandeur which 
characterized it in the time of Madame de Sevigne, 
is waiting for us ; the park with its long, shady 
avenues is also waiting ; and the garden sweet 
with jasmine and orange flowers. The chapel door 
stands open, and madame herself, blonde, smiling, 
animated, is dallying on the slope of some sunny 
terrace, chatting with her boon companion, Pilois, 
the gardener. 

Near by under the shade of the beech trees two 
abbes are seated, the one a thrifty gentleman en- 
gaged with counters and accounts, the other, 
younger than the first, an easy-going, visionary soul, 
who leans back in his arm-chair with hands clasped 
behind his head, dreaming idly. 

There comes upon these two staid abb^s an inter- 
ruption in the pleasing form of a small, debonair, 
young gentleman, dandling on silken hose and red- 
heeled slippers, a bundle of books beneath his arm. 
He talks a moment with the abbes, and the one 
looks up from his accounts and the other stops his 
dreaming to laugh at some tale which the young 
man is telling. 



MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 3 

Quickly, however, the young man turns from 
the abbes and leaves the shade of the beech trees 
for the sunshine of the terrace. 

" Mother, mother beautiful," he calls, '' will you 
not join us ? We are all impatient for the reading 
and for you." 

"Yes, yes, my little son, in a moment," she 
answers. Yet she tarries longer than a moment in 
further converse wdth the gardener. 

Madame's " little son," who is in truth no less a 
personage than the Baron de Sevigne, looks from 
his mother to the abb^s, makes a motion of comic 
resignation, and returns to the shade of the beech 
trees. 

There Madame the Marquise, bright-eyed and 
breathless, at length joins the abbds and her son. 
She is eloquent in the narration of her news. Her 
little trees are growing surprisingly, she says ; 
Pilois and she are raising their stately heads to the 
clouds ; Pilois and she are planning to form new 
avenues ; Pilois and she — 

She can go no further. Saucily, jestingly, the 
young baron interrupts her, " Enough of Pilois. I 
grow jealous of Pilois," he declares. " He absorbs 
all your time, all your thoughts. I think you 
would rather listen to his tales than to any of 
Molier's or La Fontaine's that I may read you." 

Madame the Marquise laughs gaily, '' Pilois is a 
good fellow," she returns. " 'T is true I enjoy his 
company and prefer his conversation to that of 



4 MADAME DE SEVIGNK 

many who have the title of chevalier in the parlia- 
ment of Rennes. Indeed, I am a worshipper of his 
as you, my son, are a worshipper of the fair Ninon, 
or our mouse here " — designating the younger 
abbe with a motion of her hand — "of some heav- 
enly vision, or the good uncle " — with an arch 
smile for the elder abb^ — "of the bright eyes of 
his cash-box. We must all have our idols," and 
she shrugs her shoulders. 

The young baron and the mouse (La Mousse 
his name is) laugh at madame's sly raillery, but 
the older man, madame's beloved " bien bon," 
regards his niece with a look more grave than 
merry. 

" We all know that another idol than Pilois 
reigns in our lady's heart," he observes. 

At this madame grows of a sudden very sad. 
Her eyes fill with tears. She raises her hand to 
enjoin silence. 

"You mean my daughter," she says. "Let us 
not speak of her." 

For a moment there is silence. Then it is ob- 
served that Marie, madame's French maid, is ap- 
proaching. She has crossed the court-yard and is 
descending the sunny slope of the terrace. Under 
her arm she carries a small, silken-haired dog and in 
her hand an embroidery frame. 

She draws near and seats herself at the feet of 
her mistress. Madame takes from her the embroid- 
ery frame and begins working on a rare bit of 



MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 5 

tapestry which, she explains, is to serve as altar 
cloth in her new chapel. 

Marie, a pretty piece of human bric-a-brac, frilled, 
capped, and aproned according to the most ap- 
proved code of Parisian maid servants, busies her- 
self with the combing of Fidele's, the small dog's, 
silken coat. The young baron leans forward and 
pulls Fidele's tail, and rubs his nose and flicks his 
ears, alternately teasing and caressing him. 

"Dost know thou art a usurper?" he inquires, 
playfully, of the dog. " Yes, sir, a usurper in the 
affections of your mistress. I might tell thee of 
another dog whom this faithless lady hath left 
behind her in Paris and to whom she hath solemn- 
ly vowed that she will love no other dog but 
him. And now she hath forgotten him for thee. 
I shall write and tell him of her fickleness and 
bid him go get himself a new and a more loyal 
mistress." 

" Nay, my son, do not write Maphise, I entreat 
you," pleads madame. " He will think me a 
coquette, and I mean not to be a coquette, only 
Fidele hath besieged me with such sweet charms 
that I can no longer resist him. Scold me no 
more, dear son. Read to me instead. See, I am 
waiting and the abb^s, they too, are waiting, and 
Marie and Fidele. We are all eager to be amused 
as you only can amuse us." 

Thus implored, the young baron displays his 
books. One sees upon the covers such imposing 



6 MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 

names as Tasso and Rabelais, Corneille and Tacitus, 
and most conspicuous of all, Molier. 

''Which shall it be?" he inquires. "The 
audience shall be the choosers." 

The abbes put in a vote for Tacitus and Marie's 
glance favors Rabelais. But the marquise shakes 
her head in dissent to all. 

" The genius of our young baron is best suited 
to Molier," she says. " He acts Molier so excel- 
lently that one might easily mistake him for the 
poet himself. Give us Tartuffe, my son, Tartuffe 
to the life." 

Thereupon, the shady spot beneath the beech 
trees becomes a playground, and the young baron 
an actor, and an enthusiastic audience laughs and 
applauds. 

It is thus that " The Rochers " is waiting for us. 
Those whose flights of fancy can carry them where 
they please should surely go thither. They will 
find themselves in an atmosphere of perennial 
pleasantness and cheer. 

For those who take this journey to " The Roch- 
ers " an entertaining guide is to be had in 
the letters of Madame de Sevign^. Of this 
guide, of these letters, a great deal has been said. 
Indeed, they have been as much praised as 
any of the classics of French literature. And 
one does not wonder that this should be so, 
when one discovers their immortal freshness and 
vivacity. 



MADAME BE iiEVIGNE. 7 

Of all the interesting things in the corre- 
spondence of Madame de Sevigne, and there 
are many, the most interesting is the woman 
herself. The smiling, witty, loving marquise 
charms us as she charmed the France of Louis 
Fourteenth. We want to know all that there is 
to know about her. We wish to make her our 
friend. 

We learn that this Madame de Sevign^ had 
something of a history, a history that was both gay 
and sorrowful. She came of an ancient Burgun- 
dian family. Fierce, " fire-eating " barons were her 
ancestors. A fund of moss-grown glory and tradi- 
tion was her heritage. 

She was born Marie de Rabutin-Chantal. Left 
early an orphan, she was brought up by her 
maternal uncle, the beloved " bien bon " whom we 
have seen living so pleasantly with her at "The 
Rochers," her livelong friend and companion, the 
Abbe de Coulanges. 

The abba's home was at Livry, a charming spot 
within driving distance of Paris. . Here, in a 
romantic old abbey, in the shadow of a great wood, 
with the priest, her uncle, for guardian, amid the 
scent of honeysuckle and the songs of nightingales, 
Marie's girlhood was passed ; here from such learned 
gentlemen as Manage and Chapelain she received 
her education, reading Spanish, Italian, and Latin, 
not in translation, but, as she herself expressed it, 
" in all the majesty of the original text ;" and here. 



8 MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 

at length, brilliant, impudent, radiant, she bloomed 
into womanhood. 

It must have been a real delight to behold 
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, as she was then in all 
the freshness and sparkle of young womanhood, to 
catch the glint of her golden hair, the laughter of 
what she was pleased to term her " ill-matched 
eyes," and to note the lightnings of her ever 
changeful expression. 

Her beauty, it has been said, was of a sort to 
defy the painter's art. It was a thing indefinite, 
illusive. Madame de La Fayette's verbal portraiture 
is the best likeness we have of her. 

" The brilliancy of your wit," wrote Madame de 
La Fayette, " gives such lustre to your complexion 
and to your eyes that, although wit would seem to 
affect only the ears, it is nevertheless certain that 
yours dazzles the eyes. Those who listen to you 
no longer perceive that anything is wanting to the 
regularity of your features ; they concede you the 
most consummate beauty in the world." 

Of course Marie had early her admirers, her 
lovers. First of all her tutor. Manage, did his 
utmost to evolve, out of the relations of master 
and pupil, a romance. Marie laughed at him, 
teased him, and when he was angry won him back 
to good nature by all the most refined arts of 
coquetry. It was her plan, a plan to which she 
held constantly, to make all men her lovers and 
all women her friends. 



MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 9 

Besides Menage, one of Marie's girlhood lovers 
was her cousin, Bussy de Rabutin. Marie had 
much in common with this Bussy, wit, pride, and 
ancestry, and she used playfully to refer to the 
manifold tie that bound them by the happy term 
" Rabutinage." 

It is a question whether or not the cousins ever 
came to any serious love-making. Bussy pre- 
tended to be frightened by the young Marie's 
" madcap " ways, as he called them, and declared 
tauntingly that she was " the prettiest woman in 
the world to be the wife of another." Certain it 
is that not Bussy, but a young nobleman, more bold 
and handsome and witty even than Bussy himself, 
finally married the " madcap." 

The good uncle, who showed himself in all else 
so wise and practical a guardian, assuredly evinced 
a strange want of foresight in liis choice of hus- 
band for his ward. But perhaps he could not help 
himself ; perhaps his charming blonde niece, whose 
heart was so passionately set on the new suitor, 
cajoled him into giving his assent. 

From a worldly point of view, at least, the young 
Marquis de Sevigne was all that was deemed 
desirable. Wealth, rank, manly beauty, fine clothes, 
agreeable manners, were not lacking. Indeed, so 
well dressed were his vices that it is no great 
wonder they were mistaken for virtues by the 
trusting, generous, impetuous young woman to 
whom he addressed his proposals. 



10 MADAMM! BE SEVIGNE. 

It was at two o'clock of a summer morning in 
the year 1644, at the church of St. Gervais and St. 
Portais in Paris that Marie de Eabutin-Chantal 
was married to the Marquis de Sevigne. Despite 
the earliness of the hour a long list of titled per- 
sonages were present. They had come to wish 
the young bride a joy that was destined to be very 
brief. 

The marquis carried his marquise off to his 
ancestral home, "The Rochers." There they 
remained for a long time, until their friends in the 
city were forced to send them teasing madrigals to 
lure them back to the world. This may be 
supposed to have been a period of happiness for 
the young wife. 

The world to which Monsieur the Marquis and 
Madame the Marquise at length returned was a 
gay, jesting, infinitely social world. It was the 
world of Voiture and Corneille, of Bossuet and 
Menage, a world that was making literature a 
power and conversation an art. The Hotel de 
Rambouillet over which Madame de Rambouillet, 
the incomparable Athenice, as she was called, 
reformer of morals, refiner of manners, presided 
was at the height of its splendor. Here was to 
be met a much admired, much respected company. 

Walckenaer, Madame de Sevigne's biographer, 
has given us a picture of one of the assemblages 
at the Hotel de Rambouillet. He shows us the 
ladies, bright with plumes and ribbons and gay 



MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 11 

colors, smiling, listening, suave, gathered in the 
stately, polished bondoir of the incomparable 
Athenice, and ranged round them in bowing, com- 
plimenting attendance the men — abbes, courtiers, 
wits, writers, orators. Verses are read, criticisms 
are passed, the merits and demerits of a certain 
literary composition are minutely discussed. 
Talent and good taste rule the day. 

Such was the company, such the world which 
welcomed the marquis and marquise back to 
Paris. The young married pair had not been long 
in the world when a secret concerning them was 
whispered about. It was a tale of the young mar- 
quis's extravagance and infidelity. Madame, 
whom every one admired, whom every one adored, 
was neglected by her husband. He was a spend- 
thrift and a libertine. "He loved everywhere," 
said Bussy, "but never anything so amiable as his 
own wife." 

The young marquis appears to have been quite 
without shame. He coolly informed his young 
wife that others might find her charming, but he 
did not. Bussy the unscrupulous declared that to 
madame's cold disposition her husband was 
indebted for her loyalty. It seems that by some 
evil-minded persons it had been supposed that 
madame's resentment of her husband's faithless- 
ness would make her an easy prey to their own 
gallantries. 

But the marquis and Bussy and those other evil- 



12 MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 

minded persons did not know madame. Her good 
sense and her high estimate of virtue were beyond 
their comprehension. Her unworthy husband, 
whom she could no longer respect, but whom to 
her unhappiness she still continued to love, had 
broken her heart. Her spirit of purity and integ- 
rity he had not broken. That was hers to keep 
always. 

It was at this period of bitterness and violated 
love and confidence that a new experience came to 
Madame de Sevigne. People have wondered why 
she should have loved her daughter so passionately, 
so beyond all reason. But when we consider that 
she remembered neither father nor mother, 
that she had no brothers or sisters, that 
she had been deceived in her husband, that all 
the tenderness and devotion of her affectionate na- 
ture, long repressed, was waiting for this daughter, 
her passionate, unreasoning motherhood loses 
something of its mystery. 

Madame's daughter was born at Paris, and a year 
later at "The Rochers " her son was born. Mon- 
sieur the Marquis appears to have regarded his 
wife's presence as a reproach to his profligate be- 
havior and to have kept her, therefore, at a distance 
from him. Certain it is that while he was pur- 
suing his wild course at Paris, she was living in 
seclusion at '' The Rochers," with her two children 
and her uncle, the Abbe de Coulanges, and her 
beautiful trees and alleys for companions. 



MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 13 

When at length madame returned to Paris it 
was to face the most tragic event of her life. 
Shortly after her arrival her husband fought a duel 
for one of his mistresses and was killed by his rival. 
To lose her husband, whom, spite of his faithless- 
ness, she loved, would have been of itself a blow, 
but to lose him in this humiliating way was indeed 
cruel. Whatever madame suffered, however, she 
suffered under a proud reserve. Yet that her 
anguish must have been keen we realize, when we 
learn that several years after, upon seeing D 'Albert, 
the slayer of her husband, enter the room, she 
fainted. 

Madame de Sevigne went back to " The 
Rochers," to the care of her children, to the guar- 
dianship of her uncle. There she lived quietly for 
several years-, paying her husband's debts and lift- 
ing herself gradually out of that " abyss," as she 
expresses it, into which his fickleness and extrava- 
gance had plunged her. As for the man himself, 
so earnestly did she endeavor to forget him that 
never once did she mention his name to her 
children. 

She was twenty-six years of age when, with for- 
tune and spirit restored, she reentered society. 
Mature in beauty, mature in wit, she was more 
charming even than in her girlhood days. She was 
enthusiastically received in all the fashionable 
salons of Paris. The Abbe Arnauld has given us 
a picture of madame as she then was. 



14 MADAME BE SEVIGNA 

" It seems to me," he says, " that I still see her 
before my eyes as she appeared to me the first time 
I ever had the honor of beholding her, when she 
arrived, sitting in the depths of her great chariot, 
that was thrown open wide. On either side sat 
the young gentleman, her son, and the young lady, 
her daughter, all three such as those whom the 
poets have described. They recalled to me Latona 
with the young Apollo and the j^oung Diana, so 
indescribable a charm radiated from all of them — 
from the mother and the children." 

Madame brought to the society into which she 
had made so triumphant an entrance a happy, 
laughing philosophy. She regarded her frivolous 
brothers and sisters, the reckless subjects of a reck- 
less monarch, with charming leniency. She did 
not hold back her skirts when the faulty ones 
approached. She gave them her hand and smiled 
indulgently upon them. It was enough for her 
that she kept her own self-respect and her own 
good name. She was not of the paste of which re- 
formers are made. She accepted the times as they 
were and scattered about her an atmosphere of 
flowers and sunshine. 

Her friend Madame de La Fayette wrote of her, 
" Your presence increases gaiety ; for joy is the true 
element of your soul, and unhappiness more alien to 
you than to any other person in the world." 

It was supposed by the world in which madame 
moved that, being of so social and agreeable a dis- 



MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 15 

position, slie would inevitably marry again. Many 
attempts were made to induce her to *^ change her 
condition." Conti, a prince of the blood, Turenne, 
a victorious general, Fouquet, a chancellor of the 
exchequer, were among her suitors. Yet, spite of 
the many sighs that were spent upon her, madame 
remained a v/idow. "I perceive every day," she 
told her daughter, *' that the big fishes devour the 
small fry." Her love for her children, for her 
daughter especially, so filled her heart that there 
was left no room for any other affection. 

To the tender passion, then, madame remained a 
stranger. But what she denied to love she gave 
warmly, generously, to friendship. Loyal, sincere, 
devoted, she satisfied, so La Rochefoucauld de- 
clared, "the ideas of friendship in all its condi- 
tions and consequences." Hers was the sort of 
friendship that adversit}^ and ebbing fortune can- 
not change. To Fouquet at the time of his trial 
and to Pompon ne after his fall from power she 
was an earnest and admiring partisan. 

Madame herself used to wonder why she was so 
much beloved, why she was blessed with so many 
friends. The answer was in her own heart. She 
received only what she gave. The surest way to 
be loved, the wise man has told us, is to love. 

So fond was madame of her friends, so dear was 
she to them, that she is incomplete without them. 
To know her we must know them. 

Her children excepted, no one played so large a 



16 MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 

part in her life as her cousin Bussy. We have 
seen that he had been one of her earliest admirers and 
that he and she were bound together by that pretty 
tie of " Rabutinage." After her widowhood, Bussy 
himself informs us, he was the first to speak to her 
of love. He was at that time a widower and free. 
He admits that he met with no success in his suit 
and that, not being able to obtain his own way, he 
was forced to content himself with loving her 
after her own fashion. What that fashion was 
we learn from his own words. "There is hardly 
another woman in the kingdom," he remarked sig- 
nificantly, " who can reduce her lovers to friends." 

Bussy and madame were friends — warm, true 
friends. But they had their falling out. Bussy, 
it seems, was above all things vain and ambitious. 
He wished for notoriety. To obtain this notoriety 
he wrote a novel which he called "Amorous Cron- 
icle of the Gauls " in which he satirized all the 
most conspicuous men and women in society. His 
book was very outrageous, but very amusing. It 
won for itself many readers and for its author 
many enemies. In consequence of it. Monsieur 
Bussy was imprisoned in the Bastile for thirteen 
months and then exiled to his Burgundian estates 
for seventeen years. Notoriety he had obtained, 
but at a severe sacrifice. 

Madame, of course, was very angry when she saw 
herself included in the "Amorous Cronicle." " If 
horns had started from my head I could not have 



MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 17 

been more amazed," she told him. " I read and 
reread that cruel portrait. To find one's self in 
print, the laughing stock of the Provinces, to be 
on every book-shelf, in every one's hands; to 
receive this cruel pain and from whom?" 

Her " pain," her indignation, made Bussy very 
repentant. He sought earnestly to repair the 
injury that he had done. Let us read in his own 
words the story of his expiation and of madame's 
forgiveness. It happened at the time of the trial 
of Fouquet, that former lover of madame, in whose 
defence she was so eloquent and to whom she 
referred as " our dear unfortunate." 

"I shall never blame myself enough," wrote 
Bussy, " for having offended the prettiest woman 
in France, my near relative, whom I had always 
loved and whose friendship I never had reason to 
doubt. It is a stain on my life that I tried, indeed, 
to obliterate when the surintendant (Fouquet) was 
arrested, by loudly taking the part of the marquise 
against those who had confounded her with the 
mistresses of the minister. Not only generosity, but 
truth, impelled me to act in this way. Before em- 
barking on the marquise's defence I consulted 
Tellier, who, except the king, alone had seen the 
letters in Fouquet's casket. He told me that 
those written by the marquise were the letters of a 
friend of no little wit, and that they had delighted 
the king far more than all the sentimental nullities 
of the rest. The surintendant had been greatly 



18 MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 

to blame when he mixed up friendship with so 
much lovemaking. The marquise was much 
pleased by my defence. Her kind heart and her 
near relationship both caused her to forgive me and 
since that time (which also was that of my dis- 
grace) her affection for me rekindled; and except 
for some explanations and some little reproaches 
which a painful remembrance drew from her, there 
are no marks of friendship which I have not 
received from her since then, nor of gratitude that 
I have not tried to show and that I shall not owe 
her for the rest of my life. We resumed our 
friendship in the first year of my exile." 

Bussy was disappointed in his hopes, exiled, and 
disgraced. In his loneliness madame's letters, 
sparkling with wit, glowing with loyal, generous 
friendship, must have been one of his chief com- 
forts. 

Of madame's friends surely there was no one so 
important, so conspicuous as Bussy. But she had 
other friends whom she loved more dearly and with 
whom she was more intimate and more free spoken. 
Chief among these were Madame de La Fayette 
and the Duke La Rochefoucauld, and Monsieur 
and Madame de Coulanges. 

There could be no greater contrast than that 
which existed between these two pairs of friends 
of Madame de Sevigne. Madame La Fayette and 
the duke, delicate in health, weary of the world, 
lived a quiet, reflective life. She wrote her 



MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 19 

romances and he his maxims. Each was devoted 
to the other ; both were thoughtful, serious, grave. 
Monsieur and Madame de Coulanges were the 
other extreme. They were all life and wit and 
animation. They had no love for each other, only 
a calm, forbearing consideration. They were 
always in society, always laughing, always chat- 
ting, scattering epigrams, clever sayings, and 
repartees wherever they went. Truly it was a 
triumph for Madame de Sevigne to have won the 
love of people of such different natures as these 
two pairs of friends. It was a proof of the 
breadth and versatility of her own soul. 

Madame's friends were very near and dear to 
her — they formed a large part of her existence. 
But her children, more especially her daughter, 
were her life, as necessary to her as the air she 
breathed. 

It has been said that madame's gifts of mind 
were divided and distributed between her children. 
The son was charming, but lacked stability. The 
daughter had intellect, but " there was a heaviness 
about her." 

Of the two, the son appears to have been the 
more lovable. We are inclined to quarrel a little 
with the mother for preferring the daughter to 
him. Since she was so unjust as to have a favorite 
child, why was she not more reasonable in her 
injustice, we inquire. Why did she not choose 
her son ? He was agreeable, winning, affectionate, 



20 MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 

a most unselfish son and brother. He was a little 
wild, to be sure. But his faults were of the time, 
rather than of his own inclination. And then he 
was such a charming penitent, was so good natured 
and humble and witty under admonishment. We 
are not at all surprised to hear that his mother's 
scoldings of him generally ended in a burst of 
laughter. 

Nevertheless, it was not her amiable son, but her 
phlegmatic daughter, whom madame loved best. 
It is difficult for us to like this daughter. She 
was so uncommunicative, so lukewarm, so calmly 
philosophical, so very different from her mother. 
When madame spoke or wrote she "opened the 
flood gates." Her thoughts and her feelings 
rushed forth impetuously for expression. Made- 
moiselle was timid, diffident, haughty, far removed 
from her mother's tolerance and sweet self-forget- 
fulness. Bussy said of the young lady, " This 
woman has wit, but a tart wit, alloyed with intoler- 
able vanity. She will make as many enemies as 
her mother has made friends and adorers." 

Spite of mademoiselle's asperity and pride, how- 
ever, she was her mother's darling. Madame's 
love for her daughter was a passion, a religion. 
Arnault d'Audilly called the mother "a pretty 
pagan." Madame herself said of her love, " It is 
a constant devotion. It is what one ought to 
render to God." 

In the world in which madame lived, a frivolous, 



MADAME BE SEVIGNA 21 

volatile world that made passions of whims, whims 
of passions, this sweet, tender, overwhelming mother- 
love was regarded as an anomaly. People could 
hardly believe it genuine. They spent much time 
discussing it, wondering about it. At length 
Monsieur de Pomponne solved the riddle of it. 
There was played at court a game which was 
called " Le Revers de la Medaille," the reverse 
side of the cards. It consisted in guessing at the 
realities that lie beneath the semblances. "Madame 
de Sevigne seems to love her daughter passionately," 
he said. " Do you want to know what is on the 
face of the card ? Shall I tell you ? Why this — 
She loves her passionately. '''' 

Of madame's praises of her daughter we grow 
a trifle weary. It is somewhat of a task to have 
to agree with compliments with which we are 
expected to agree. But for the great mother-love 
we are all sympathy. It is something that appeals 
deeply, keenly, to every one of us who has ever 
loved. 

Madame's love for her daughter was the ground 
on which she took her stand in the world. To 
bring out this daughter, to see her shine, was 
madame's one desire. Mademoiselle de Sevigne 
was very beautiful. She was of a more regular, 
colder type than her mother. She danced admir- 
ably and figured in the royal ballet with the charm- 
ing young duchess of Orleans (whose tragic fate 
Madame de La Fayette has touchingly recorded) ; 



22 MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 

with Mademoiselle de Saint-Simon (the fair sister 
of the court historian) ; with the lovely Louise de 
la Valliere (that sweet sinner and penitent) ; 
and with Mademoiselle de Mortemar (who soon 
after became Madame de Montespan, the Cleopatra 
of King Louis's reign), 

Kacine, Boileau, and Fontaine, we are told, 
composed many madrigals in honor of Mademoi- 
selle de Sevigne. She was hailed nymph and 
shepherdess and, in echo of her mother, "the prettiest 
girl in France." At length, in 1669, Monsieur de 
Grignan won her in marriage and bore her off to 
Provence, where in great state he ruled as governor 
of the province. 

With the departure of Madame de Grignan to 
Provence dates the period of our intimate acquaint- 
ance with Madame de Sevigne. The adoring 
mother is separated from her darling. She is 
lonely and sad. Her one consolation is in writing 
to this daughter, in pouring out her heart on paper. 
Her letters become " torrents," she says, torrents 
that she cannot "keep back." Previous to this 
date madame has written letters to Bussy and to 
other of her friends. These letters have shown 
her to be a woman of wit and taste and feeling. 
But now in this correspondence with her daughter 
we are to find the spark of genius. Madame 
now writes without restraint, without traditional 
method. Her own fancy is her guide. Her thoughts 
and feelings flow impulsively, intuitively. She 



MADAME DE SEVIGNE. 23 

scatters colors, images, impressions. " Her pen," 
as she expresses it, " has always the reins on its 
neck." The secret is a soul has entered into her 
correspondence, the soul of a profound, yearning 
mother-love. It is the spring from which her 
talent gushes forth ever fresh, clear, and sparkling. 

It is thus she writes after the first cruel parting, 
"Every thought stabs me with grief. Nothing 
distracts me. I am always with you. I see the 
coach always advancing, but never approaching. I 
am always on the highroad, and sometimes feel 
almost afraid lest the coach upset. I have a map 
before my eyes and know every place where you 
stop over night. Do write me about your trip by 
boat. Alas ! how dear and precious to me is that 
little vehicle the Rhone hurries so cruelly from me I 
Ah, my dear, how I long just to see you, to hear 
you, to embrace you, merely to see you pass by, if 
the rest is too much to ask. . . . Unable 

to keep back my thoughts of you, I have 
begun to write to you, seated at the end of that little 
shady walk you love, on the mossy seat where I 
have seen you lying. But, Heavens ! where have 
I not seen you here ! And how all these thoughts 
pierce my heart! I see you; you are present to 
me. I think and think again of it all. My wits 
are in a whirl. But in vain I turn about, in vain 
I search ; the dear child I love so passionately is 
two hundred leagues away." 

It was for the entertainment of " the dear child " 



24 MADAME BE SEVIGN£ 

that madame composed her letters. To amuse this 
far-away daughter she related bits of gossip, 
humorous stories, pictured the gay tinsel existence 
at Versailles and the quiet, retired life at " The 
Rochers," told of the books she was reading, the 
thoughts she was thinking. Her letters are talks. 
They embody in perfection the spirit of French lit- 
erature which was a genius for society and conver- 
sation. Very amusing are letters such as those 
which announce the engagement of the romantic 
Grande Mademoiselle to a man without fortune, 
rank, or worth, the dismissal of madame's faithful 
servant Picard, who refused to make hay, a piece of 
absence of mind on the part of Brancas, the most 
absent-minded of men, and a trick played by the king 
upon his devoted old courtier the Marechal de 
Grammont. And very affecting are those letters 
of another sort which describe the sorrow of the 
Marechal upon the death of his son, and of the 
Duchess de Longueville upon the death of her son, 
and despair of Vatel, the prince's cook, who killed 
himself in shame because the fish that were 
expected did not arrive on time. And very elo- 
quent are the letters written upon the deaths of 
Turenne and Luvoise. All of these letters glow and 
pulsate with life. They transport us to Paris and 
Versailles, make us contemporaries of the Grand 
Monarch and his subjects, sharers of their joys and 
sorrows. 

It is of the court and its people, of the gos- 



MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 25 

sip and stories told about them, that madame's 
correspondence has principally to do. But though 
she was primarily a painter of society she could 
represent nature as well. 

Madame was of an adaptable disposition, as 
much at home in the woods and meadows of " The 
Rochers " as in any Parisian salon. She wrote of 
spending the afternoon in the fields ''conversing 
with the cows and sheep." She knew the birds 
intimately, and corrected her daughter's superficial 
acquaintance with them. "Where do you find 
that nightingales are heard on the thirteenth of 
June ? Ah, they are too busy then caring for their 
little households. They no longer think of singing 
or of making love ; they have more serious business." 
She mourned the felling of a tree as the loss of a 
friend. When her son caused a portion of the 
ancestral woods to be cut down in order to raise 
money to meet some foolish expenses, she was 
greatly grieved and wrote plaintively of the out- 
cast crows and owls, wood gods and dryads, who 
made complaints to her and touched her very 
heart. With infinite skill she celebrates "the 
triumph of the month of May when the nightin- 
gale, the cuckoo, and the linnet open the spring- 
time in our forests." She makes us enjoy with 
her " those fine, crystalline days of autumn which 
are no longer warm and yet not cold." And she 
does not neglect winter, but appreciatively relates 
its charms when the trees are adorned with pearls 



26 MADAME DE 8EVIGNE. 

and crystals. She observed the various stages of 
spring so carefully, the gradual transitions and 
shadings of the leaves on hornbeams, beech, and 
oak trees, as they passed from red to green that 
she at length declared, " At a pinch I don't know 
but that I could make a spring myself." 

Madame had a genius for society, and an intel- 
ligent love of nature. She possessed also energy 
and originality of mind. She was not carried away 
by the excesses of the time. In politics she showed 
a degree of independence. She admired the king, 
but believed him human, and saw the folly of un- 
due flattery of him. " I am told," she writes, " that 
the Minin monks in dedicating a thesis to the king 
have compared him to God, but in such a way as to 
make it plain that God is but a copy. Too much, 
too much." And again, " What will courtiers not 
do to please their masters ? " she demands. " Do 
they reckon health, pleasure, property, life itself, 
of any moment compared with obeying and pleas- 
ing him ? If such were our feelings toward God 
what saints we would be I " 

In religion she was not wholly pious like her 
friends at Port Royal, nor altogether frivolous 
like her acquaintances at court. She had both 
worldliness and other-worldliness. She was the 
means between the two extremes. Her belief was 
in a providential fatalism. " To my mind," she 
writes, "the author of the universe must be the 
cause of all that happens. When I must needs 



MADAME BE SEVIGNA 27 

blame Him I blame no one and submit. It was de- 
creed that there should be a Madame de Sevigne lov- 
ing her daughter more than any other mother loves 
hers, that she should be separated from this 
daughter, and that the keenest sufferings she 
should experience in life should be occasioned by 
this dear child." And in the same vein, referring to 
the death of Monsieur de Turenne, she says : " For 
myself, who see Providence in all things, I see that 
cannon loaded from all eternity. I see everything 
leading Monsieur de Turenne to its mouth, and I 
find nothing hurtful in all this, supposing liis con- 
science to be in good condition. What would he 
have ? He dies in his glory ; his reputation could 
gain nothing more. In that moment he enjoyed 
the satisfaction of seeing his enemies retreat — of 
reaping the fruit of his three months' endeavors. 
Sometimes in the coui-se of a long life the star 
grows dim." 

On the mystery of life and death she passed many 
grave reflections. "As for my life, you know it," 
she declares. " I spend it with five or six friends 
whose society is pleasant to me, and in the per- 
formance of a thousand necessary duties — no light 
affair. But what troubles me is that nothing is ac- 
complished day by day, and life is made up of days, 
and we grow old and we die. This, I think, is 
very sad." And again, " Alas, how death goes up 
and down, striking on every side ! " she exclaims. 
"I find myself bound by an awkward engage- 



28 MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 

ment. Launched into life witliout my consent, I 
must leave it ; this overwhelms me. And how 
shall I leave it? Whither? By what door? 
When will it be ? With what preparation ? How 
shall I stand with God? What shall I have to 
offer him? What can I hope for? Am I worthy 
of heaven? Do I deserve hell? What an alter- 
native ! What a perplexity ! I might better have 
died in the arms of my nurse." 

There are no wiser, pleasanter reflections upon 
old age than hers. " Providence," she writes, " leads 
us with so much goodness through the different 
stages of our life that we hardly are conscious as 
they pass by. The change is effected with such 
gentleness that it is imperceptible. It is the hand 
on the dial, which we do not see moving. If at 
twenty they were to show us in a looking-glass 
the countenance which we have or should have at 
sixty, comparing it with that of twenty, we should 
be quite overcome and horrified at that face ; but it 
is unnoticeably that we grow older. To-day we 
are as we were yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day ; 
and thus we go on without feeling the change, and 
this is one of the miracles of that Providence that I 
adore." And in continuation of this same theme, 
" You know," she says, " that I never could en- 
dure that old people should say, ' I am too old to 
correct myself.' I could more easily forgive the 
young folks in saying, ' We are too young.' Youth 
is so attractive that we could only adore it if the 



MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 29 

soul and the mind were as perfect as the body ; 
but when one is no longer young, then it is that one 
must try to perfect one's self and try to make up in 
good qnalities what one has lost in the agreeable 
ones. For this reason, every day I mean to im- 
prove in soul, in mind, in sentiment." 

Reverie played a large part in Madame de 
Sevign^'s life. And so, too, did reading. She was 
always, as she herself declared, "a devourer of 
books." She read everything from Rabelais, who 
made her " die of laughing," to Nicole who made 
her "quake with fear." She was desirous that 
her grandson should develop a taste for reading, 
and lamented that his young blood made " such a 
din " that he did not hear her wishes. And 
when she learned that Pauline, her granddaughter, 
was fond of books she was delighted. "She is 
beyond the reach of tedium and idleness, two hor- 
rid pests," she wrote. 

We would expect of a woman like madame, one 
who thought so deeply and so broadly and who 
read so widely, that she would rise above the pre- 
judices of her time. Therefore we are shocked at 
the lightness with which she describes the suffer- 
ings of the poor peasants of Brittany who, driven 
by the tyranny of their duke to rebel against him, 
are conquered by armed force and cruel executions. 
We are disturbed, too, by the weakness of the re- 
monstrance that escapes her when she learns that 
her little granddaughter D'Adh^mar is to be sacri- 



30 MADAME BE 8EVIGNE 

iiced, immured for life with all her pretty hopes 
and passions in a convent. We look for a genuine 
protest, a righteous indignation on the part of the 
kind-hearted marquise. But we are disappointed. 
Madame's fault was a too easjr acceptance of 
the wrongs of the times. She who was so sweet, 
so charming, so sensible, was not perfect. We 
regret the little that was lacking to make her 
ideal and mourn her failing as that of a dear 
friend. 

Madame was over-indulgent. Yet she could 
resent, she could denounce. And, when at length 
her voice is raised in censure, it rings very true 
and clear and forceful. Madame was not in sym- 
pathy with the extravagance of the age in which she 
lived. She was not of the class which believed 
that to keep a strict account of expenses was 
beneath one's dignity and honor. In her economies 
madame was a plebian. She declared vehemently 
against the reckless living of her daughter and 
son-in-law. She accused them of being "two 
spendthrifts, the one demanding, the other approv- 
ing everything." She complained bitterly of the 
"cruel and continual cheer of Grignan" and 
prophesied that the fabric of which their glory 
was constructed would prove illusive and dissolve 
at a touch. 

The Grignans, however, gave no heed to her 
words of wise protest. Their castle remained " an 
inn" where eighty to a hundred guests were con- 



MADAME BE SEVIG-NA 31 

stantly entertained and where the gaming table 
forever made and unmade fortunes. 

Madame's daughter and son-in-law were but 
living the life of the rest of the aristocracy of the 
day. The whole court was on the brink of bank- 
ruptcy. In vain daughters were cloistered and the 
portions of the younger sons appropriated. The 
nobility was without money, without resources. 
Their only refuge was the bounty of the king. 
Like Bussy they " embraced his knees " in the 
hope that finally they might " reach his purse," 
In the words of Madame de Sevigne, they " paid 
court to him " on the chance that " some drop- 
pings might fall upon them." 

Madame, of course, despite her disapproval, 
helped the Grignans generously. She gave also 
to her son, for whom a commission in the army 
must be purchased and those luxuries furnished 
which were incumbent on his state. On her 
children's account madame was near to ruin. But 
her own thrift and the ability of the good uncle, 
who was her steward, preserved her. She retired 
to " The Rochers " and lived there sparingly, 
savingly. At length by slow degrees her fortune 
was reinstated. 

Meanwhile the young, radiant Latona, whom 
we saw riding with her two beautiful children in a 
coach drawn b}^ prancing horses, was gone. In 
her place there had come a stately, white-haired, 
frugal lady. There may have been wrinkles on 



32 MADAME BE SEVIGNE. 

this lady's countenance. There were none in her 
heart. She was as charming, kind, and generous 
as that Latona had been. 

Her house in Paris, the Hotel Carnavalet, where 
for so many years she had entertained and had 
written her immortal letters, was closed. Madame's 
last years were spent amidst the tranquil, serene 
beauty of " The Rochers." Her son, always sweet 
tempered and genial, a better son, perhaps, than 
madame deserved, since she so infinitely preferred 
her daughter, was with her. By now he was " a 
gray-bearded ensign" and had brought with him 
to " The Rochers " a delicate, fragile little wife of 
whom the elder marquise came to be very fond. 

At length our Madame de Sevigne looked for the 
last time, not knowing it, upon her beloved trees 
and walks and terraces, and the moss-grown 
chateau in which so much of her life had been 
passed. She left the rugged north behind her and 
descended into the sunshine of the south, a sun- 
shine that was the more glowing because of the 
dear daughter who dwelt therein. Let us leave 
her at her journey's end, smiling and contented, 
amid the olives and orange groves, with her daugh- 
ter's hand in hers. 



MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. 



Born in Paris in March, 1634. 
Died in Paris on May 25, 1692 



•' The most intellectual woman and the best female writer in 
France." — Boileau. 

Opposite the Petit Luxembourg in the Rue de 
Yaugirard stood the home of Madame de La 
Fayette. It was a hue house with a pleasant gar- 
den attached. Many were the illustrious persons, 
weary of the frivolities of court and with a taste 
for letters and serious conversation, who repaired 
thither. It was a relief, they said, to escape from 
the whirlpool a moment and to recover their breath 
and draw new life and inspiration in the serene 
atmosphere of madame's drawing-room. 

Now it Avas Segrais, the poet wit, who presented 
himself; there was manuscript beneath his arm — 
he had come, like as not, to ask madame's opinion 
on a story of his or to help in the construction of 
a story of hers. And now it was La Fontaine ; he 
had written, perhaps, some verses and wished to 
inscribe them to madame. Sometimes the Cardinal 
de Retz was a visitor, and sometimes the Prince de 
Conde. Madame de Maintenon, before the days 
of her elevation, was a near neighbor of Madame 



34 MA I) A 31 E BE LA FAYETTE. 

de La Fayette and came often to see her ; she had 
always some just and sage remark at her tongue's 
end. Madame de Coulanges came, too, and no one 
in all the little coterie was so vivacious, so volatile 
as she. But the one who was most welcome and 
most loved, she of the sunny countenance, affec- 
tionate greeting, and witty story, was she whom we 
immediately recognize as Madame de Sevigne. 

Madame de La Fayette, a tall, frail figure, som- 
brely and yet richly dressed, a pensive, gentle, 
calmly judicious presence, received her friends 
with that blending of candor and reserve which 
was her distinguishing trait. With her, at her 
side, there was always a certain notable gentleman. 
He was no longer young, and gout pinned him to 
a chair, but his face while sad and cynical was 
supremely noble. This gentleman was famed 
throughout France as the Duke de la Rochefou- 
cauld. 

The world, which was never known to spare 
anybody, had not spared Madame de La Fayette. 
It criticised her for many things. It declared that 
she was notional, that her many illnesses were 
imaginary rather than real. It had much to say in 
ridicule of the lace curtains with which she adorned 
her bed. But most of all it busied itself in gossip 
about her friendship with the Duke de la Roche- 
foucauld. 

Was it friendship, or was it love, every one in- 
quired. '' The fear of the Lord on the part of 




DE LA FATETTE . H 




MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. 
From a portrait by Bouterwek. 



MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. 35 

both and perhaps also policy have clipped Cupid's 
wings," one reflective woman determined. The 
too suspicious Bussy shook his head; "I main- 
tain that there is love between them," he as- 
serted. 

To this medley of opinion Madame de Sevigne 
hastened, eager to defend. She interposed words 
of earnest faith and admiration, spoke feelingly of 
the charm of their friendship, their " delicious com- 
munions," and their confidence in each other. 
" Such a tie," she concluded, " seems to me stronger 
than any passion." 

Posterity has decided upon the intimacy between 
Madame de La Fayette and the duke, and has 
decided with Madame de Sevigne. This intimacy, 
every one now agrees, was friendship, an ideal 
friendship, legitimate, earnest, steadfast. It had all 
the tenderness, all the softness, all the warmth of 
love, and the calm, clear strength of an intellec- 
tual alliance. In truth, it was a romance, a 
romance without storms, wholesome and serene, 
and one quite befitting the life of so sweet and 
rational a woman as Madame de La Fayette. 

It was a late romance. Madame, its heroine, 
was a mature, a sane, an eminently serious woman. 
She had almost forgotten the playtime of her early 
youth. But Madame de Sevigne, her friend, had 
not forgotten and delighted to recall it. " Despite 
her discretion, we laughed and had our frolics," 
she declared. 



36 MADAME 1)E LA FAYETTE. 

So it was, Madame de La Fayette had had her frol- 
ics. Before the days of her madameship, when she 
was known as Mile. Marie Madeleine Pioche de la 
Vergne, she had been gay and girlish, but always 
in a very gentle way. " That old Menage," she 
had called Menage, her tutor, and he in turn had 
punned on her name and designated her '' Layerna," 
which in Latin is to say '' the thief." It was his 
heart that she had stolen. The amorous pedant 
made it a point to fall in love with the prettiest 
and brightest of his pupils — first with the witty, 
teasing, fair-haired Marie de Rabutin Chantal, and 
six years later with this other Marie who, if not so 
sparkling as her predecessor, was of a more poetic, 
delicate turn of mmd. " Spirituelle," the Abbe 
Costar called her. " Tout lumineuse, tout pre- 
cieuse," the poet Scarron said of her. 

Of course she proved a brilliant scholar. Her 
f atlier, who was field-marshal and governor of Havre, 
was proud of her and engaged the best masters to 
come and teach her. Menage and Father Rapin 
together developed her young mind. She soon 
caught up with them in learning. One day when 
they were discussing as to the correct translation 
of a certain passage, she came forward, very 
modestly we may be sure, and said, " You are both 
wrong," and with that she herself read the passage 
as it should be read. The masters had to confess 
themselves vanquished, and by a girl. It was 
poetry, we are told, that she interpreted so glibly. 



MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 37 

With Cicero she would have naught to do. Virgil 
and Horace were her idols, and it was to them she 
gave her thoughts. It was the poets whom she 
loved and understood so perfectly. 

Mademoiselle was learned, but she did not desire 
to be so considered. She was well aware of the 
ill favor that attaches to " blue stockings," and 
she wisely avoided it. When questioned outside 
the school-room as to the meaning of an iambus 
she trippingly replied that it was the opposite of a 
trochee. And no one, save her masters and her 
friends, guessed at the wealth of knowledge which 
her light manner hid. 

Thus her school-days passed pleasantly. When 
she was fifteen, however, her father died and her 
mother, who, though a good woman, was frivolous 
and gay, very soon married again. Mademoiselle's 
step-father, to whom it has been stated she did not 
take very kindly, was the Chevalier Renand de 
Sevigne, uncle of that young Marquis de Sevigne 
who had recently taken as wife the sunny, impul- 
sive, light-hearted Mademoiselle de Rabutin Chan- 
tal. And so it was that these two women, destined 
to play parts graceful and important in their 
country's history, met for the first time. 

Together Mademoiselle de la Vergne and the 
young Marquise de Sevigne frequented the Hotel de 
Rambouillet. They were to be seen there often 
seated side by side. They were one in their 
admiration of Corneille and in their dislike of all 



38 MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 

that savored of the pedantic and affected. They 
were not of those "Femmes Savantes," at whom 
Moli^re afterwards aimed his darts. Their sense 
of humor and their knowledge of the fitness of 
things preserved them from ridicule. From the 
Hotel de Rambouillet they took away with them 
what was best of its spirit, and left behind all that 
was false and foolish. 

It was not long after her meeting with Madame 
de Sevigne that Mademoiselle de la Vergne 
became the wife of the Compte de La Fayette. Of 
the Compte little is known. He appears to have 
effaced himself almost completely. It is related of 
him only that he married and died young, leaving 
his wife with two sons and the name which she was 
to render famous. 

It is an interesting fact concerning madame's 
husband that he was the brother of the beautiful 
Louise de La Fayette whom Louis XIII. had 
loved and whom the cloister held as Mere Angel- 
ique. Madame de La Fayette went often to visit 
her sister-in-law at the convent and there, for the 
first time, she saw Princess Henrietta of England 
and there her friendship with the princess began. 
Later, Avhen the princess married the brother of 
the king of France and under the official title 
" Madame " became a central figure in the court 
circle, Madame de La Fayette was summoned to 
her side. The princess was deeply attached to her 
and could not oret on without her ; Madame de La 



MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. 39 

Fayette herself could not understand wherefore, 
and finally decided that it could only be by chance 
that she who was of so grave a nature should please 
so young and frivolous a woman as Madame. 

Madame lived a life of romantic adventure and 
intrigue. She confided all her secrets to Madame 
de La Fayette, and at her request Madame de La 
Fayette confided them to paper. The result was a 
charming book of Memoirs. Thanks to the gentle, 
loving pen of the writer, the youthful indiscretions 
and errors of the princess are softened and the 
princess herself, who "knew not the meaning of the 
word rancor," shines forth in the true light of 
her sweet, winning, unselfish personality. The 
little volume ends suddenly and sadly with a 
death-bed scene. As we read, we seem to see the 
author's tears staining the pages. Madame died in 
Madame de La Fayette's arms. Her death was a 
sorrow for which Madame de La Fayette never con- 
soled herself. She said that it cast a shadow over 
the rest of her life. On the third anniversary of 
Madame^ 8 death she wrote to Madame de Sevigne, 
" I reread some of her letters yesterday. My heart 
is full of her." 

During the years that Madame de La Fayette 
moved at court Louis was at the height of his pros- 
perity. She was surrounded by successful authors, 
victorious generals, and a smiling, polished gallan- 
try. She kept in the background, however, look- 
ing on rather than taking any active part. She 



40 MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 

was withal something of a critic, and even vent- 
ured to write a satire on the fashionable jargon of 
the day. One fancies her a woman, still young 
and of an attractive personality, attending Madams' s 
parties at Fontainebleau and St. Cloud, observing 
all that went on about her and making mental 
notes which were to stand her in good stead when 
she came to write the romances of her later years. 
She spoke seldom, but always to the point. Her 
word carried weight with it and even was regarded 
as a kind of ultimate authority. 

"When Madame died, Madame de La Fayette 
retired from court. She was sad for the loss of her 
friend and her health was beginning to fail. 
Moreover, her natural inclmation was for society 
of a more serious and more literary caste. She 
occasionally frequented the salon of the Grande 
Mademoiselle and that of Madame de Sable at 
Port Royal. She is represented as one of the in- 
habitants of the Chamber of the Sublime." She 
is pictured as seated beside Madame Thianges 
reading verses while Bossuet and the Duke de la 
Rochefoucauld, the Duke de Maine and Monsieur 
de Marsiallac in another part of the room read 
more verses, and Despereaux with a pickaxe holds 
at bay seven or eight bad poets and Racine, safely 
installed at his side, beckons to La Fontaine to 
join them. The poets of her own day to whom her 
tastes and talents were allied were appreciated in a 
measure by Madame de La Fayette. She was on 



MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 41 

frieodly terms with Moli^re, Boileau, and La Fon- 
taine. But ever faithful to the author of the " Cid," 
she retained for him her chief allegiance. 

Madame de La Fayette herself began to write at 
an early date. She wrote merely for her own 
pleasure and because she could not help doing so. 
Authoresses were not in favor then. Women were 
told that they should inspire, but must not write. 
Madame, therefore, took into her literary confidence 
only a few of her most faithful and most indulgent 
friends. Segrais was at first her chief adviser. 
He helped her in the arrangement of her plots and 
in her methods of construction. He even lent his 
name to " Zayde," her first real work, which ap- 
peared at the close of 1670. People were easily 
deceived into believing him the author. The story 
closely resembled his work, still retaining much of 
the exaggerated, romanesque style. But here and 
there were touches, delicate, subtle, true to life, 
which gave promise of the dawning of a new star 
in the literary firmament and of the new era which 
this star was to introduce. 

At the time of the publication of "Zayde," 
Madame de La Fayette and the Duke de La 
Rochefoucauld had for five years been united in 
that peculiar tie which bound them so happily and 
so indissolubly together, and which gave the 
world so much to talk about. Theirs was not one 
of those affections which Madame de La Fayette 
has somewhere defined as " the passions which 



42 MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 

snatch us irresistibly from ourselves." Rather it 
was the kind conscious of itself, slower and more 
sure. When for the first time they met each other 
in Madame de Sable's salon, the duke was a man 
fifty years old. He had passed through all manner 
of romantic experiences and situations, yet had 
never been, Madame de Sevigne tells us, what may 
be truly called '' a lover." " Love," he declared, 
with his cold, cynical smile, " is nowhere but in 
novels." He saw Madame de La Fayette. He 
talked with her. She was, it is true, still young 
in years, about thirty, but there was maturity and 
womanly wisdom in her soul. He admired the 
justice of her mind, the sincerity of her nature. 
Segrais had praised her candor and had related as 
an instance of it that she never concealed her age, 
but told freely in what year she was born. La 
Rochefoucauld, in his turn, admired that candor. 
He said in praise of Madame de La Fayette that 
she was "genuine." It was the word that best 
described her. Madame de La Fayette, on her 
part, we may imagine, was flattered when she per- 
ceived the impression she was making on so distin- 
guished and important a man as the duke. She 
divined too his noble nature. She saw that he was 
something beyond the misanthrope, the author of 
the "Maxims." She longed to sweeten his 
thoughts, to lead his perverted nature back to its 
original clear channels. Thus it was that their 
friendship came about gradually and deliberately. 



MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. 43 

It was at first a matter of intellect, but at length 
heart entered m and it became that something deli- 
cate, romantic ideal which one finds so indefinable. 

It is through the letters of Madame de Sevigne 
that we catch glimpses of the quiet monotony, the 
mutual sympathy of the daily lives of these two 
friends. It is true that the pervading atmosphere 
of their existence is one of cloud rather than of 
sunshine. The duke is crippled with his gout and 
madame's fever is constantly overtaking her. 
'' We have conversations so sad," says Madame de 
Sevigne, " that it seems as if there was nothing to 
do but to bury us." But the garden close at hand 
is full of the sweetest perfumes. Sometimes, when 
health and spirits are at their best, the dining-hall 
is merry with guests. Now and then, even, there 
is a jaunt to the opera, and LuUi's " Cadmus " 
moves not only the impulsive Madame de Sevigne, 
but even the reserved Madame de La Fayette to 
tears. Another time it is the " Poetique " of Des- 
pereaux that snatches them from themselves. We 
even find mention of a sojourn to the court where 
Madame de La Fayette with some other ladies 
drives in the king's calash and is shown the sights 
of Versailles and delights his majesty with her 
judicious praise. 

All this, however, is but the occasional. There 
are other times, unfortunately more frequent, when 
Madame de La Faj^ette is too ill to see her friends. 
She is utterly weary, tired even of saying "good 



44 MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 

morning" and "good evening." Then she escapes 
to the country, and Madame de Sevigne, in her 
absence, finds a deserted garden and a duke 
incredibly sad. The flowers still bloom; they 
have the sunshine and the fresh air to cheer them. 
But the " friend of her soul " can find no comfort 
in a life from which she has departed. 

Gourville, the servant of the duke, was jealous 
of Madame de La Fayette and used to say that she 
had taken entire possession of his master. Madame 
de La Fayette had a gentle but commanding way 
and it may be that Gourville was right. It was a 
willing, a happy and beneficial thraldom, however. 
One scarcely recognizes in the friend of Madame 
de La Fayette the cynical author of the " Maxims." 
Madame de Sevigne tells us of his "soul unsurpassed 
for fortitude, wisdom, kindness, and strength," and 
says that he is a patriarch and knows almost as 
well as herself " a mother's tenderness." He sends 
pretty little compliments to her daughter. He is 
kinder in his manner, less bitter in his speech. One 
detects the influence of Madame de La Fayette. 
Where there was once a belief in universal corrup- 
tion there is now forbearance, even a mild hopeful- 
ness. That was true which Madame de La Fayette 
herself said: "He stimulated my intellect, but I 
reformed his heart." 

Together madame and the duke, alike ill and 
sad, talked and wrote and received their friends. 
Moreover, madame, who numbered among her ac- 



MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. 45 

complishments an understanding of jurisprudence, 
managed the aifairs of the duke and restored his 
fallen fortunes. Then, too, being a close friend of 
the Duchess of Savoy, madame acted as a sort 
of secret agent for the duchess. Her parlor be- 
came, for the affairs of Savoy, something like a 
private bureau. Madame heard everything, saw 
everything, advised and planned and managed, 
was indeed the skilled and helpful diplomat to 
perfection. 

In the midst of a life so full, so occupied, Mad- 
ame de La Fayette found little time for the letter 
writing which she hated. " If I had a lover who 
wished to hear from me every day," she said, " I 
should break with him." Her poor correspondence 
was the one complaint which Madame de Sevigne 
raised against her. We know the protesting letters 
of the impetuous marquise. To them Madame de 
La Fayette at length replied in a tone gentle and 
soothingly affectionate : " Now, my dear, why are 
you screaming like an eagle ? Do not measure our 
friendship by our letters. I shall love you as much 
in writing only a page in a month as you in writing 
ten in eight days." 

This was true, and Madame de Sevign^ knew 
that it was. Indeed she had never really doubted 
Madame de La Fayette. The two understood each 
other perfectly. "There was never," Madame de 
Sevign^ herself declared, "the slightest cloud on 
our friendship." 



46 MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 

The same could not be said of Madame de La 
Fayette's friendship with Madame de Maintenon. 
Here bitterness crept in and a close attachment of 
many years ended in disagreement and coolness. 
Both were judicious, intellectual, and candid, both, 
hated pretension and admired simplicity and ear- 
nestness. They had much in common. Each 
praised the other for her uniform bearing. And 
yet it was this same simplicity, candor, and uni- 
form bearing in Madame de La Fayette which, it 
has been hinted, offended Madame de Maintenon 
when she became the wife of the king of France. 
Madame de Maintenon's ideas, it is to be feared, 
changed with her condition. No doubt she desired 
from Madame de La Fayette a greater consideration 
because of her own acquired state. This, of course, 
Madame de La Fayette, the straightforward, never 
gave her. They went their different ways. Mean- 
while it was not in the ante-chamber of Madame 
de Maintenon that polite manners found their best 
expression ; there reform went too far, and auster- 
ity carried the day. Rather it was the salon of 
Madame de La Fayette that saw the most satisfying 
triumphs of society and conversation. 

Madame de La Fayette maintained her uniform 
bearing. She flattered no one. She wrote few 
letters. She made few visits. Yet she won and 
kept many friends. '' No one," Madame de Sevign^ 
said, " accomplished so much without leaving her 
place. She has a hundred arms," continued her 



MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 47 

enthusiastic friend; "they reach everywhere." 
What was the charm, one asks. It was of intrinsic 
worth. Madame de La Fayette, to use La Roche- 
foucauld's word for her once more, was " genuine," 
and she was sane and just. People said of her 
that her judgment was superior to her intelligence, 
and it was the compliment that pleased her best. 
She was quiet, almost languid in her manner. It 
was a theory of hers that people should live with- 
out ambitions and without passions : " It is enough 
simply to exist," she said. Yet, one was conscious 
always of a reserve force, and of a delicate sensi- 
bility as well. She who was so calm, so reticent, 
it is known, shed tears over Lulli's Cadmus, avoided 
good-byes between herself and Madame de Sevign^ 
because of the pain they caused her, and at the 
hint of any danger to the duke was instantly 
alarmed and tearful. Thus it was that her charac- 
ter was one of strength and her feelings of tender- 
ness ; and for both she was loved. Moreover, the 
refinement of her thought as expressed in her 
speech was an additional attraction. Her compari- 
son of poor translators to the lacqueys who stupidly 
bungle and distort the compliments with which 
they have been entrusted by their mistresses is one 
of the many true and striking remarks for wliich 
madame was distinguished and which lingered long 
afterwards in the memory of her listeners. 

Such was Madame de La Fayette's charm, a seri- 
ous rather than a ga}^ one. And so it was felt to 



48 MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. 

be by her friends. While others were known as 
'' The Sunbeam," " The Eainbow," and " The Leaf," 
she was " The Mist." She lingered on the heights 
and one could only faintly see the blue beyond and 
the sunshine peeping through. The blue was always 
pale, the sunshine veiled. Hers was not a nature 
of brilliancy, light, and color, but of soft, subtle 
shades. Yet there was a restfulness about her, 
a peace and comfort which the more gaudy and 
more dazzling ladies could not bestow. So thought 
the duke. 

It was when the friendship between Madame de 
La Fayette and the duke was at its height that 
" The Princess de Cleves " was written. Together 
the two friends sat and dreamed and planned. 
Madame wrote, and the duke, whose literary taste 
was excellent, revised and approved. Thus em- 
ployed, the hours passed pleasantly. The world of 
fact, of sickness, age, and sad experience was for- 
gotten. Together the two friends entered the realm 
of youth and poetry and romance. In the heroine 
Madame de la Fayette's own early, sweet imaginings 
were pictured, and in Monsieur de Nemours the 
duke saw himself as he had been in youth, only 
idealized and uncontaminated by contact with the 
baser elements of life. That mild, equable light 
which arose from their own tranquil love suffused 
the characters of their creation. The atmosphere of 
the book was one of sentiment, true, pure, and 
simple sentiment, touched with reality. The spirit 



MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 49 

of their own happy, soul-communings had entered 
in. As they approached the end, the tone grew grave 
and sombre. The close was one of renunciation 
and triumphant sacrifice. It was as if they felt 
only too keenly the brevity of life and the nearness 
of that inevitable separation which fate held in store 
for them. 

The book was completed and appeared in the 
spring of 1678. Immediately the princess became 
the person most talked of. Her name was on every- 
body's lips. People stopped one another in the 
Tuileries to inquire about her. She was read and 
read again, and yet again. And she was criticised 
and she was dramatized. Indeed, she was quite the 
event of the season. 

The authorship of the book was veiled. Segrais, 
the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, Madame de La Fay- 
ette, no one of them would acknowledge it. " The 
book is an orphan," wrote Madame de Scudery, " dis- 
owned both by father and mother." Madame de La 
Fayette even went so far as to write critically and 
quite impersonally of it. "As for mj^self, I am flat- 
tered at being suspected of it," she said. " I believe I 
should acknowledge the book if I were assured that 
the author would never appear to claim it. I find it 
very agreeable and well-written without being 
excessively polished, full of things of admirable 
delicacy which should be read more than once ; above 
all, it seems to be a perfect presentation of the 
world of the court and the manner of living there. 



50 MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 

It is not romantic or ambitious ; indeed it is not a 
romance ; properly speaking it is a book of memoirs, 
and that I am told was its title, but it is changed. 
Voila, my judgment upon Madame de Cleves." 

Proof is not wanting, however, to show that the 
book is the work of Madame de La Fayette 
'' assisted by the taste " of Monsieur de La Roche- 
foucauld. It marked a new epoch in the novel. 
In place of the stilted and impossible, it substi- 
tuted the easy and the natural. Adventures in it 
were few. The story depended for its interest on 
the analysis of character and of motive. It was 
narrated simply, delicately, quietly. One lingered 
over its pages in pensive, happy mood, even as the 
lovers of whom it told lingered along the banks of 
" the brook bordered by willows." Its characters 
were of the Court of Henry II., but they were very 
like the characters of the Court of Princess 
Henrietta, whom Madame de La Fayette had 
known and studied. There was present the same 
grace, the same gallantry and lightness, the same 
France. Its charm was its freshness, its purity, its 
truth, the qualities that live. And so, quite 
modestly, without flourish of trumpet or call to 
arms, it took its place among French classics. 

The romance completed, the pen laid aside, 
Madame de La Fayette and the duke rested and 
watched the effect of the little volume. Its suc- 
cess was the closing happiness of a life together 
that had held much of happiness. For the last 



MADAME BE LA FAYETTE. 51 

time the two friends read and conversed together 
and saw in each other's eyes that mutual under- 
standing and tenderness that was so dear to both. 
Then the duke died. 

" Madame de La Fayette has fallen from the 
clouds," wrote Madame de Sevigne. " There is 
comfort for all others, but none for her." In vain 
the poor lady sought to interest herself in new 
schemes, in the enlargement of her house. She 
found only that her loneliness increased. She tried 
to console herself with the friends that remained to 
her. But these had divided interests. Nowhere 
could she find that constant thought, that absolute 
affection which she had always received from the 
duke. She could not, as Madame de Sevigne 
declared, " so close up her ranks as to fill the 
vacant place." There was left only God and 
death. 

Madame de La Fayette turned her thoughts to 
Heaven, not with the exaltation of a religieuse, — 
" divine reason " was still her guide, — but with 
resignation and hope. Her life had been quiet yet 
full, she thought. She had little to regret, much 
to be thankful for. And thus, v/ith sweet sanity, 
patient and gentle to the end, she died. 



MADAME GEOFFRIN. 



Born in Paris, 1699, 

Died in Paris, Oct. 6, 1777. 



* ' Madame Geoffrin is an extraordinary woman with more com- 
mon sense than I almost ever met with." — Horace Walpole. 

She is a unique figure, this Madame Geoffrin. 
The memoirs of the seventeenth century show her 
to us an elderly, sensible, proper sort of person. 
We think that we are not going to like her, that 
we are going to find her stupid and commonplace. 
We end by discovering her to be a woman of 
remarkable power and charm, and by liking her as 
we would like an affectionate school-ma'am or an 
indulgent stepmother. 

It is thus that the society of her time knew and 
admired her. The men and women who came to 
see her at her house in the Rue Saint-Honore, who 
courted her patronage, who submitted themselves 
to her empire, were her boys and girls, her school^ 
children, her sons and daughters. They called her 
mamma, and took her scoldings gracefully as 
obedient children should ; or, if they were not in 
the mood for scoldings, they ran away, played 
truant, yet returned inevitably to the maternal 
knee. They begged to be scolded again, having 

52 




MADAME GEOFFRIN. 
From a painting by Staal. 



f 



MADAME GEOFFRIN. 53 

found her frowns more necessary than the smiles 
of' the rest of the world. They were attracted, 
too, by those sugar-plums which she bestowed at 
intervals, sugar-plums in the shape of life annuities. 
They were tied, so to speak, to her apron. She had 
them in leading strings. 

It is as a mamma, a schoolmistress, a mature 
and motherly soul, that Madame Geoffrin seems to 
have made her first appearance in the world. One 
remembered her always with silvery hair, her cap 
tied under her chin, a bit of exquisite lace about 
her throat, and wearing soft, silky gowns of sombre 
shade. She never endeavored like some women, 
it is said, to appear younger than she was. She 
dressed not for "yesterday's age," but for "to- 
morrow's." This added to her natural air of dig- 
nity and quiet elegance. 

There was, however, a prehistoric period of 
youth to which Madame Geoffrin's own mind 
occasionally reverted. She spoke of it briefly to 
her friends. She was of bourgeois birth, she said. 
Her father had been a valet de ch,a7nhre. She 
could remember neither father nor mother. Her 
grandmother, a sensible old lady, whom she herself 
seems to have resembled greatly, brought her up. 
She was taught to read, to reason, and to judge 
men and women fairly. Thus her education was 
devoted not to book learning, but to the art 
called savoir vivre, the art of living properly. 
" Knowledge," said her grandmother, " never made 



54 MADAME GEOFFRIN. 

a foolish woman wise." One could get on without 
knowledge if one had only tact and address. 
Grandmother herself travelled successfully through 
the world on the strength of these two qualities. 
She could talk most entertainingly of things of 
which she knew little or nothing. When caught 
in a blunder, she extricated herself so prettily that 
one liked her the better for it. She cultivated the 
heart, the judgment, the taste of her little grand- 
daughter, and let mere intellect take care of itself. 
The education of Madame Geoffrin was just such a 
one as, knowing her, we should have supposed it 
to have been. 

When Madame Geoffrin, then Marie Th^r^se 
Rodet, was fourteen years old, she married a gen- 
tleman much older than herself and very wealthy, 
Monsieur Pierre Francois Geoffrin. He, too, was 
of the bourgeois class, a lieutenant of the National 
Guard, and one of the founders of glass manufacture. 
He was of the chimney-corner variety of gentle- 
man — quiet, unobtrusive, stupid. He sat silent at 
madame's table full of guests. At length he was 
seen no more. Some one inquired of Madame 
Geoffrin, " What has become of that old gentleman 
who always was present at your dinners?" "It 
was my husband," she answered. " He is dead." 
Outwardly, then, it would seem monsieur played 
no part in madame's career. In private, how- 
ever, their married life was similar to that of 
many bourgeois couples, humdrum but stormless. 



MADAME GEOFFRIN. 55 

Madame was spared the domestic complications 
and disasters that so often were the portion of the 
women of the noble class. 

It was to her husband that Madame Geoffrin 
was indebted for the instrument of her power. He 
furnished the means that were essential. Having 
the means, she herself established the " institution," 
for so her salon was called. She filled her house 
with beautiful pictures and statuary ; she provided 
her table with the choicest and most delicious of 
good things. This she did with refined and 
delicate taste, without ostentation or vulgarity. 
She opened her doors to savants, philosophers, 
artists, litterateurs, brilliant women, and laughing 
girls. She, a plain, plebeian woman, received these 
chosen spirits of her age with a manner that was at 
the same time respectful and pleasantly familiar. 
She depreciated herself, but allowed none of her 
guests to depreciate her. She was modest, and she 
was also dignified. Thus her address was perfect. 
With such taste, such address, and added to these 
infinite social talent, she was what has been fitly 
termed a "minister of society," a '' civilizer." 

Her salon was, Sainte Beuve informs us, the 
most complete, the best managed, the best ap- 
pointed. It was, moreover, the most important. 
She who had neither youth, beauty, nor education 
to recommend her was the chief of the salonists. 

We first hear of her as coming into prominence 
in 1748. Then she was on the eve of her fiftieth 



56 MADAME GEOFFBIN. 

birtlida}^ From that time on, over a period of twen- 
ty-five years, her empire continued and extended. 
She sat upon her throne, a regal schoolmistress, and 
summoned her subjects about her, and with a min- 
gling of severity and gentleness, she told her little 
anecdotes and preached her little sermons and 
recited her clever little maxims and justly appor- 
tioned the rewards and the punishments. She was 
a quiet influence for good in a time when vice was 
very noisy. 

It was not only her grandmother's teachings 
which had helped Madame Geoffrin to this high 
position. She had acquired something from 
Madame de Tencin. Madame Geoffrin had attended 
frequently the salon of that talented but immoral 
woman. Madame de Tencin, when she was dying, 
shrewdly observed, "Do you know why she 
comes ? It is to see what she can gather from my 
inventory." It was spiteful, no doubt, of Madame 
de Tencin to say this, and yet, as it chanced, 
Madame Geoff rin really did inherit, in a measure, 
the social sway of Madame de Tencin. She learned 
method from her. It was Madame de Tencin who 
told her, " Refuse the friendship of no man, for 
though nine persons out of ten should fail you 
the tenth may prove useful to you." This advice 
Madame Geoffrin remembered. Though she did 
not accept it wholly, she profited by it. 

Madame de Tencin's method, however, and 
grandmamma's teachings, and Monsieur Geoffrin's 



MADAME GEOFFEIN. 57 

fortune were but aids. The empire was Madame 
Geoffrin's by her own right, a right that came of a 
wisdom not of books — something deeper, broader, 
and more intuitive. This wisdom we may define 
as common-sense, compounded of tact and taste 
and kindness and a proper regard for order and 
right conduct. 

Madame's management of her salon was a fine 
art. Upon it she spent infinite thought and labor — 
careful thought, skilled labor. She permitted no 
hitches, no jars. Consequently, all ran as smoothly 
as the perfected wheelwork of an expert artisan. 
On Mondays she entertained at dinner artists and 
sculptors ; on Wednesdays, men of letters. At 
these dinners Mademoiselle de Lespinasse was the 
only woman guest. Women, Madame Geoffrin 
determined, divided the interest; and what she 
desired for these dinners was unity. After dinner 
she received the world. Then the evening ended 
with a merry little supper, to which were bidden 
half a dozen or so of her most intimate friends, 
this time both women and men. At her board, in 
her parlors, might be seen Marmontel, Holbach, 
d'Alembert. To their philosophic and literary 
talk was added the broken French of some illus- 
trious foreigner and the girlish treble of some sweet 
flower of a Countess d'Egmont. 

Over her guests, it has been said, Madame 
Geoffrin presided like " an invisible Providence." 
Her influence was one of peace. She never per- 



68 MADAME GEOFFBIlSr. 

mitted conversation to wander into the stormy 
realms of politics and religion. She tolerated no 
passions, not even the passion for virtue. When 
discussions became in the least degree heated, she 
raised her hand enjoining silence. "There, that 
will do," she said, and she introduced a more 
tranquil topic. 

Her rule, therefore, was quiet. She would per- 
mit no rebellious pupils in her school. When one 
was so naughty as to do or say or write anything 
that sent him to the Bastille, she was much dis- 
pleased and never quite forgave him. She did not 
like extremes. "My mind," she said, "is like my 
legs. I love to walk on level ground, and I do not 
wish to climb a mountain to have the pleasure of 
saying, when I have reached the top, 'I have 
climbed that mountain.' " She was opposed to 
haste and change, and though she was in favor of the 
philosophic spirit of the time, she wished to keep it 
within bounds, " There is no need," she declared, 
" of pulling down the old house before we have built 
the new one." Thus her empire was one of calm 
restraint. 

From all this it may be seen that Madame Geoff- 
rin was a Conservative. She was an example of the 
moderate spirit of the first half of the seventeenth 
century. And she was also an example of its dry- 
ness, its terseness, its practicality. She was with- 
out extravagances and without illusions. She 
hated flattery, and desired always that people 



MADAME GEOFFRIN. 59 

should address her with the simplicit}^ and frank- 
ness of a child. To Madame Necker she wrote : 
'' My dear friend, I beg of you to lessen your exces- 
sive admiration. I assure you, you humiliate me. 
The angels think very little about me, and I do not 
trouble myself about them. Their praise and 
blame are indifferent matters to me, for I shall not 
come their wa}^ But what I desire is that you 
love me and take me as you find me." 

Madame's charity, too, was in keeping with the 
age which she represented, an age so moderate, so 
dry, so terse, so practical, that it was also egotisti- 
cal. Some one once spoke disparagingly to her of 
her cream. " What can I do? " she said. " I cannot 
change my milk woman." "And why not?" in- 
quired her friends. '' What has your milk woman 
done that you cannot change her?" "I have 
given her two cows," madame replied. That was 
her way. Her acts of benevolence were to her 
works of art which she loved to contemplate. She 
would do nothing to spoil them and detract from 
the pleasure which her recollection of them afforded 
her. Thus her charity, while generous and kind, 
was not exactly according to Scripture. It sought 
its own. What madame desired was not so much 
the happiness of the recipient as her own satisfac- 
tion. She bestowed her gifts with a delicacy that 
made refusal a rudeness. She ran away, quite in- 
considerately, from the tears and thanks of the 
beholden. There was a little selfishness in all this, 



60 MADAME GEOFFRIN. 

yet a noble selfishness that sought the realization 
of goodness for its goal. Madame herself admitted 
the fault in her charity, and excused it in her 
usual clever fashion. Those who gave seldom, she 
declared, had no need of thinking of themselves ; 
but those who, like herself, made a practice of 
giving must do so in the way most agreeable 
to themselves, for " it is necessary to do con- 
veniently," she said, " what one wishes to do every 
day." 

Madame's charity, then, was no more angelic 
than she desired Madame Necker's praises of 
herself to be. It v/as of the earth, and very sensi- 
ble and practical. We are able to trace it in a few 
of its various windings. We discover Madame 
Geoffrin paying the debts of Stanislaus Poniatow- 
ski, afterwards king of Poland, and granting to 
Morellet a sufficient allowance for an independent 
existence, and to Thomas another such allowance. 
We see her visiting the houses of her friends, and 
bestowing here and there a vase, a couch, a chair, 
whatever is most needed. And on Sunday after- 
noons, when she is alone, coming upon her by 
stealth, we find her tying up little bags of money 
for distribution among the poor. She had what 
she called the giving humor. It was a help and 
comfort to the world. 

Such was Madame Geoffrin's life. She bestowed 
gifts ; she entertained her friends at little dinner 
and supper parties; she managed her house and 



MADAME GEOFFRIN, 61 

her salon. Her days passed smoothly and monoto- 
nously. 

At length came the event of her life. She made 
her journey to Warsaw. Her favorite among her 
school-children, Stanislaus Poniatowski, was the 
cause of her journey. Stanislaus, her protege, 
whose debts we saw her paying, had ascended the 
throne of Poland. He wrote to her : " Mamma, 
your son is king." He invited her to visit him in 
his new kingdom. She accepted his invitation, 
she left her dear France, and this because she 
loved him. 

Madame Geoffrin loved Stanislaus as she might 
have loved a son. She scolded him as she scolded 
all her school-children, she encouraged him, she 
gave him wise counsel. He endured her scoldings ; 
he responded to her encouragements ; he disregarded 
her counsels; he behaved as children will. She 
quarrelled with him and forgave him. " When one 
is young," she told him, "pleasures, passions, 
tastes even form attachments and break them. 
My love for you depends on none of these things, 
and therefore it has lasted. It has lasted in spite of 
candor and plain speaking, and it will last to the 
end of my life." She spoke truly. She loved 
him, as she said, to the end, and dying while he 
was yet prosperous was spared the pain of his 
downfall. 

It was to visit Stanislaus, as we have seen, that 
Madame Geoffrin made her famous journey to 



62 MAJDAMM GMOFFRIW. 

Warsaw. Her one thought was of him. She did 
not anticipate the triumphs with which she was 
everywhere met. The monarchs of the countries 
through which she passed seemed to forget that 
she was just a private citizen, and treated her 
like a queen. Maria Theresa was especially atten- 
tive to her. Madame Geoffrin saw at the Austrian 
court Marie Antoinette, then a beautiful child of 
twelve. " As lovely as an angel," Madame Geoff- 
rin declared her to be. ''Write to your country 
and say you have found her so," was the answer 
she received, and it was thus she wrote. Later she 
wrote of the king of Poland : "• It is a terrible 
position to be king of Poland. I dare not say how 
unfortunate I find him." She wrote, too, that her 
heart remained the same. She was loyal to old 
friends. Honors had not turned her head. She 
found men and things much the same everywhere, 
yet kept always her preference for France. " All 
that I have seen since I quitted my Penates," 
she declared, "makes me thank God for having 
been born a Frenchwoman and a private citizen." 

Madame Geoffrin returned to Paris and the 
Parisians. She was glad to be at home again, 
When people spoke to her of the consideration she 
had been shown, she neither denied it nor boasted 
of it. She maintained her dignified and clever 
modesty. 

She continued her dinner and supper parties, 
her scoldings, and her generous giving. She drew 



MADAME GEOFFBIN. 63 

from her little court the best that was in them, 
whatever of virtue, whatever of talent they pos- 
sessed. Once she complimented an old abbe on 
his conversation. " Madame," he replied, " I am 
but the instrument on which you have played 
beautifully." And what the old abbe said that she 
did to him she did to all. She played beautifully 
on every one who came within her influence. 
Consequently, there was always harmony where 
she was. 

Madame Geoffrin was a philosopher with the 
philosophers. Yet there was a private chapel in 
her mind to which her thought very often repaired. 
She was quietly religious. She was disturbed 
when one of her school-children died without con- 
fession, just as she was when one of them was sent 
to the Bastille. She wished to have the proprieties 
observed in religion as in all things. Madame 
Geoffrin had a daughter, an only child, who was 
more strictly, more ostentatiously devout. She 
did not like her mother's philosophic friends. As 
Madame Geoff rin grew old and ill and feeble, 
this daughter stood sentinel over her and would 
not admit Marmontel, D'Alembert, and the rest 
to her mother's presence. Her severity amused 
Madame Geoffrin. " My daughter is like Godfrey 
de Bouillon," she said. " She wants to defend my 
tomb against the infidels." She secretly contin- 
ued her gifts to " these infidels," and sent them 
messages of good will and affection. But she did 



64 MADAME GEOFFRIN. 

not see them. Thus she kept peace with her 
daughter, and at the same time did not forsake her 
friends. 

We are granted a pleasant glimpse of Madame 
Geoff rin in these last days. She writes to Stanis- 
laus of a visit she has just received from a troop 
of merry girls. She is merry with them, she laughs 
with them, she makes them forget the distance 
between youth and age. Yet, before they leave, 
she lets fall a bit of her school-ma'am sophistry. 
She scolds them for wasting their youth, and 
preaches to them that they may have an old age as 
bright and healthy as hers. 

This was Madame Geoffrin. No one understood 
so well as she how to combine the ethical and the 
gay, the frowns and the smiles of life. She was a 
dear mentor. It is as such that the world remem- 
bers her and as such that the world loves her. 



MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINASSE, 



Born at Lyons, Nov. 18, 1732. 
Died at Paris, May 23, 1776. 



"It is impossible to encounter such beings (as Mile, de 
Lespinasse), victims of a sacred passion and of so generous a 
woe, without being moved to a sentiment of respect and admira- 
tion in the midst of the profound pity which they inspire." — 
Sainte-Beuve. 

Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, writing to that 
"false great man," M. de Guibert, whom she so 
passionately loved, compared her life to the most 
pathetic pages in the novels of Richardson and 
Prevost. "I have lived a hundred years," she 
said. Li a sense she spoke truly. With such 
intensity had she existed, so much of loving and of 
suffering had she experienced in her short life that 
in spirit, if not in fact, her years numbered a hun- 
dred. 

During mademoiselle's lifetime she was known 
only as the charming woman dear to society, the 
mistress of the Parisian salon most in vogue. The 
world that every day from five in the afternoon to 
nine in the evening assembled in her parlors in the 
Rue de Belle-Chasse was not acquainted with her 
other personality. It was not until after her death 
that her true character became manifest. Then it 
was that the publication of lier letters by the widow 

65 



6(j MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 

of Guibert, the man to whom the letters were ad- 
dressed, revealed Mademoiselle de Lespinasse as 
she really was, a woman all feeling, all heart, a 
feverish, throbbing, self-consuming soul. 

There was ever about Julie an atmosphere of 
mystery and sadness. " Her face was never young," 
said one who knew her. She was twenty-two years 
old when, as the companion of the witty, crotchety, 
old Madame dii Deffand, she made her first appear- 
ance in Parisian society. Every one was inquiring 
who she was, whence she came, what was her his- 
tory. That she was somebody from somewhere 
and that she had a history was evident to all. But 
no one could discover anything about her. Madame 
du Deffand was deaf to all questions in regard to 
her charming young companion. And Julie her- 
self on all personal matters maintained a sorrow- 
ful and impenetrable silence. 

People were left to wonder. They wondered. 
And while they wondered, they admired, they 
loved. This Mile. Julie de Lespinasse, who had 
neither fortune, rank, nor beauty to commend her, 
became the rage in Parisian society. The habitues 
of Madame du Deffand's brilliant salon almost for- 
got the witty marquise whom they had come to 
see, and gave their thoughts and their attention to 
the poor, proud, untitled woman who was her com- 
panion. 

All people, even those who admired and loved 
Julie most, found it dif6cult to explain her charm. 











1 



















OzTTrtondflle- pmjxy. 



MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINASSE. 
From a painting by Carmontelle. 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 67 

She Avas not pretty they admitted. Indeed, she 
was quite plain, but — the " buts " came fast, elo- 
quently, ardently. 

Julie was tall and slender and of a noble, grace- 
ful bearing, we are tokl. The perfect taste and 
simplicity w^ith which she dressed gave the effect 
of richness to her apparel. But her chief attrac- 
tion, her chief external charm, the one upon which 
all testimonies agree and dwell was her " expres- 
sive countenance." She had not one expression, 
we are informed, but all expressions. Her voice, 
too, was remarkable. It had all tones, all inflec- 
tions. And never, it was said, did a more perfect 
harmony of face, voice, and soul exist than that 
embodied in JMademoiselle de Lespinasse. 

It was not upon external qualities, however, that 
mademoiselle depended principally for her charm. 
She pleased by her person. But she pleased much 
more by her mind, her character. That which one 
noted first of all in the mind, the character of Mad- 
emoiselle de Lespinasse was her tact, her intuitive, 
unerring tact. She exclaimed once to her friend, 
D'Alembert, " Oh, I wish that I could know 
everybody's pet weakness." She said this because 
she liked to make those about her happy, to help 
them to appear at their best by leading them to 
speak of that in which they were, each one, most 
interested. And, if we will examine the testimony 
of those who knew lier, we will find that she was 
not far from obtainino- her Avish. It is related of 



68 MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINASSE. 

her that she said to each one that which suited him, 
that she never talked above or below the feelings or 
understandings of her listener, that she had always 
at her disposal that precious gift of the right word, 
that she drew confidence gently, and divined every 
one's secret thoughts. 

An aid to her in this power of divination was a 
quality that has been defined by one among her 
friends as "freedom from personality." She for- 
got herself, she lost herself in the interest of others. 
She was no longer herself when talking. She was 
somebody else's " I." 

This power of divination, this ability to put her- 
self in another's place, this exquisite tact, ranked 
first among her charms. That which was next 
admired, next praised, was her naturalness. She 
was, we are told, natural in her bearing, her move- 
ments, her gestures, her thoughts, her expressions, 
her style. Pretension was repugnant to her. And 
she hated the affected manners and other follies of 
people in society. She never aired her knowledge, 
her talents, her abilities. Consequently it was of 
her, not of these other things, that people thought 
when they talked to her. It was herself they 
loved. 

We might go on indefinitely speaking of made- 
moiselle's charms, of the excellence of her tone, 
the correctness of her taste, her knowledge of all 
that is elegant and refined and which enabled her 
to divine the language of what is called "good 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. G9 

society," as Pascal in his day, while it was yet 
unformed, divined the French language. Reading 
of these charms, told in the glowing phrases of her 
admirers, we are pleased with mademoiselle as the 
world of her time was pleased with her. She was 
so thoroughly a lady that we cannot but enjoy her 
company. As yet we know her only, we like her 
only, as the world knew and liked her. Later we 
shall become more intimately acquainted with her, 
we shall see her as her friends saw her. We shall 
discover what D'Alembert called " the shadows " 
in her character. We shall discover these shadows 
and at the same time, through the eyes of her 
friends, we shall behold lights of mind and charac- 
ter as yet unrevealed. 

It was mademoiselle as we now laiow her, how- 
ever, the tall, graceful, unbeautiful woman with 
expressive countenance, simply dressed, tactful, 
natural, in every point a lady, who captivated the 
world of the Parisian salon. For her people for- 
sook Madame du Deffand, the wittiest and most 
aristocratic woman in Paris, and followed her, an 
emigrant spirit, to her modest little apartment in 
the Eue de Belle-Chasse. She was the magnet to 
whom poets, philosophers, students, men of fortune, 
and affairs were drawn. 

Mademoiselle de Lespinasse certainly was a 
remarkable and interesting woman. It was natural 
that people should wonder about her, that they 
should wish to penetrate the atmosphere of mystery 



70 MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 

that enveiox^ed her. Yet few among her intimates 
were admitted to her secrete. Few knew of Julie 
all that there was to know. 

Her history, as she herself declared, was a sad 
one. She was the natural daughter of the Count- 
ess D'Albon, a lady of consequence in Burgundy. 
She was brought up by her mother, loved and 
cared for by her in secret, and given a brilliant 
education. 

It was at the time of this mother's death that 
unhappiness first claimed Julie for its own. The 
intimac}" of familj' life, Guibert tells us, is the 
scene of life's deepest passions and greatest calami- 
ties. He said this with Julie's story in mind. 
From the position of cherished daughter she 
descended to that of dependent, of stranger. Her 
relatives were not her friends. Rather they were 
her persecutors. They told her ruthlessly who 
she was and that she must expect nothing from 
them. We can imagme what were the sufferings 
of the proud, sensitive girl, so suddenly orphaned 
and abandoned. " Sorrows," remarked D'Alembert, 
referring to that period of her life, " fed upon her." 

Five of the yeai^ following her mother's death 
Julie lived at Chamrond with the Marquise de 
Vichy, legitimate daughter of the Countess D'Albon. 
She had the right to expect some privileges, some 
advantages, but she was given none. Almost 
immediately she was made governess of the mar- 
quise's children. Humble, inferior duties were 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPIXASSE. 71 

hers. She could have forgiven the duties, however. 
The marquise's manner toward her, one of insolent 
patronage, she could not forgive. 

The Marquise de Vichy had married the brother 
of Madame du Deffand, the Marquis de Vichy- 
Chamrond. And it was at the chateau of Cham- 
rond that Madame du Deffand and Julie de Les- 
pinasse first met. Madame, it is said, was 
impressed with the air of sadness that dimmed 
the young girFs face and she was attracted by 
Julie's rare charm and intelligence. The two 
women were warmly drawn to each other. The 
superiority of their minds made them congenial 
comrades- Madame soon drew Julie's confidence. 
" She told me," wrote Madame du Deffand, '' that 
it was no longer possible for her to remain with 
Monsieur and Madame de Vichy ; that she had long 
borne the harshest and most humiliating treatment ; 
that her patience was now at an end ; that she had 
declared to Madame de Vichy that she must go 
away, being unable to bear any longer the scenes 
that were made to her daily." 

Madame du Deffand, as it happened, was at this 
time nearly blind and in search of a reader, a 
companion. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, she 
decided, was the person she needed, the person she 
desired. She proposed to Julie that she come and 
live with her in Paris at her apartment in the Con- 
vent of Saint Joseph. Julie could not immediately 
accept the offer. Her brother and sister, the 



72 MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINA8SE. 

Vicomte D'Albon and Madame de Vichy raised 
objections. They feared the position proposed to 
her might make known her rights to the D'Albon 
name and a share in the family fortunes. She 
retired to the convent at Lyons to await their 
consent. 

Julie received many grave injunctions from 
Madame du Deffand in regard to the new position 
she was called upon to fill. Madame pictured to 
her what her life would be, told her it would be a 
dull one, reminded her that, though she would be 
in the world, she could not be of it, commanded 
that she must totally forget who she was and 
resolve never to think of changing her social state. 
Above all, madame insisted upon perfect candor in 
Julie's deportment toward herself. " The slightest 
artifice," she informed her, " even the most trifling 
little art, if you were to put it into your conduct, 
would be intolerable to me. I am naturally dis- 
trustful and all those in whom I detect slyness 
become suspicious to me to the point of no longer 
feeling the slightest confidence in them. There- 
fore, you must, my queen, resolve to live with me 
with the utmost truth and sincerity." 

Julie listened. Her young, ardent, aspiring 
spirit grew troubled under the older woman's 
strictures and wisdom. Perhaps she felt that this 
suspicious woman of the v/orld, who had taken so 
great a fancy to her mind was quite incapable of 
ever knowing her heart. She feared, she told 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE, To 

madame, to fall into a state of discouragement, 
which would render her intolerable and inspire 
her future mistress with disgust and repentance. 
We can imagine Julie's attitude of proud 
humility, and the air of measured kindness 
and reassurance with which the elder woman met 
it. In the end, as was inevitable, Julie agreed, she 
promised. And when her brother and sister, per- 
suaded of their own security under the conditions 
of her new position, had given their consent, she 
went to live as companion and reader to Madame 
du Deffand, in that worldly retreat of unworldly 
name, the Convent of Saint Joseph. 

The life in common between Madame du Deff- 
and and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse was begun in 
1757, and it lasted ten years. Considering the 
natures of the two women and the elements with 
which they had to reckon, the amazing thing is not 
that their intimacy did not continue longer, but 
that it continued as long as it did. Given two 
women, such as they, of equal minds, both pre- 
eminently fitted for social leadership, the one a 
recognized power, old, jealous, suspicious, the 
other a rising sovereign, young and ambitious, a 
rupture was the natural, almost the inevitable, 
consequence of their union. It is not difficult to 
picture the various stages of the estrangement: 
madame's envy of Julie's success, the gradual 
withdrawal of her friendly patronage and protec- 
tion, the development of her never very sweet 



74 MADEMOISELLE BE LE8FINASSE. 

disposition to the point of injustice and unkind- 
ness ; Julie's distress when she found herself 
out of favor, her tactful, painstaking attempts 
to reinstate herself in the good graces of her 
mistress, then, as madame continued to play the 
tyrant, the slow cooling of mademoiselle's interest 
and gratitude. We are sorry for madame, and at 
tlie same time we are sorry for Julie. Of course 
both were at fault, and yet neither was at fault. 
Their's was a quarrel in which it is impossible to 
determine the right and the wrong. 

However, when we come to consider the final 
break, I think it is madame, old, sick, disappointed, 
abandoned, defiant, who has our sympathy, not her 
brilliant young companion whose glory has 
eclipsed her own. It may be that Julie is no more 
culpable than before, but she is victorious, and 
sj^mpathy always goes to the unfortunate, to the 
defeated. 

" The slightest artifice," madame had said to 
Julie when she took the young girl to live with 
her, " would be intolerable to me." In madame's 
eyes Julie was found guilty of this artifice when 
she entertained a chosen few of madame's friends, 
privately, secretly in her own room. Madame du 
Deffand, who was an invalid and who slept late, 
rising unexpectedly one evening, came suddenly 
upon mademoiselle and her company. Madame felt 
herself robbed of her social rights, cheated, out- 
raged. Her anger broke forth violently. To her 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 75 

mind this secret meeting in mademoiselle's room 
was nothing less than treachery. " She uttered 
loud out-cries," said Marmontel, who was among 
those present, "she accused the poor girl of steal- 
ing her friends, and declared that she would no 
longer Avarm the serpent in her bosom." 

The rupture between the two women had all the 
importance of an event. Parisian society was 
divided, so to speak, into two camps. Julie's camp 
had by far the greater number of followers. Not 
only did D'Alembert, whom Madame du Deffand 
compelled to chose between herself and her former 
companion, boldly take Julie's part, not only did 
those men more especially Julie's friends, such 
men as Turgot, the Chevalier de Castellux, and 
Marmontel stand by her, but even President Ren- 
ault and others of madame's intimates declared for 
Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. 

Julie left the Convent of Saint Joseph abruptly. 
Her separation from Madame du Deffand left her 
with only the trilling income of one hundred 
crowns bequeathed to her by her mother. 

Though poor in purse, however, she was rich in 
friends. One friend obtained for her an annual 
income from the king, which placed her above 
actual need. Anotlier friend made a present to her 
of the furniture of the apartment she had hired. 
She found herself established, though not luxu- 
riously, at least comfortably and pleasantly in the 
Rue de Belle-Chasse, mistress of a salon which 



76 MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 

culled every evening for its adornmeut the flower 
of the minds of that time. 

To advance her new position in life, many gen- 
erous offers of assistance were made to Julie. 
She would receive, however, only such as she 
believed confidently that she could return. She 
preferred being poor to being indebted. She had 
what D' Alembert defined as " the honorable pride 
that hates benefits." 

"I have always considered," she once said to 
Guibert, " that equality is the first condition to ren- 
der friendship durable. Friendship cannot exist 
from the moment one friend becomes the benefactor, 
the other the beholden. The cares, attentions, 
councils, feelings of my friends I receive because 
I can return them. But how can I return what 
they might do to increase my means ? I should be 
for the rest of my life ill at ease with them ; when- 
ever my affection worked, I should fear they saw 
only my gratitude. They would love me less. 
And as for me, I should feel oppressed by the sort 
of ascendancy I had given them over me." 

Perhaps Julie's hatred of benefits, her "honor- 
able pride," was excessive. Yet we must agree 
with D' Alembert that it was a " virtue " and 
admire her for it as her friends admired her. 

Mademoiselle's slender means would not permit 
her to give suppers like Madame Geoffrin, Madame 
Necker, and the other salonists of the day. But 
every evening from four to nine o'clock she was 



MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINASSE. 77 

at home, and not for all the feasts of the Msecena- 
ses of her time would mademoiselle's friends have 
missed her festivals of intellect, grace, and ele- 
gance. 

Mademoiselle's salon was more intellectual than 
Madame du Deffand's, more aristocratic than 
Madame Geoffrin's. It was characterized above all 
else by variety. In every other salon there was some 
ruling spirit. In mademoiselle's not even D'Alem- 
bert was any more than an ordinary visitor. There 
was in mademoiselle's salon a place for every 
person, a chance for every topic of conversation; 
politics, religion, philosophy, anecdotes, and news 
all contributed to the entertainment of the com- 
pany. 

Marmontel has compared Julie's management 
of her salon to the wand of an enchantress. At a 
word, lightly thrown in, apparently without effort, 
she could change the talk, direct it at will, 
exciting it or modulating it as she desired. " Under 
her guidance," he said, " the variously assorted, 
widely differing members of society fell into har- 
mony like the strings of an instrument touched by 
an able hand. She played the instrument with 
an art that came of genius. She seemed to know 
what tone each string would yield before she 
touched it. I mean to say that our minds and 
our natures were so well known to her that in 
order to bring them into play she had only to say 
a word." 



78 MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINA8SE. 

Grimm wrote similarly of Julie's ability as mis- 
tress of her salon. *' She possessed," he said, " in an 
eminent degree that art so difficult and so precious, 
— of making the best of the minds of others, of 
interesting them and bringing them into play with- 
out any appearance of constraint or effort. No one 
knew better how to do the honors of her house. 
She had great knowledge of the world and that 
species of politeness which is most agreeable ; I 
mean that which has the tone of personal interest." 

For her position in the world mademoiselle was 
fitted, as we have seen, by nature. She had received, 
moreover, in the salon of Madame du Deffand the 
best sort of preparation for the part she had to 
play. " See what an education I received I " she 
says herself. "Madame du Deffand, President 
Henault, the Abbe Bon, the Archbishop of Tou- 
louse, the Archbishop of Aix, Monsieur Torgot, 
Monsieur D'Alembert, the Abbe Boismont — these 
were the persons who taught me to speak and to 
think and who have deigned to consider me as 
something." 

Conversation was not all that went on in Julie's 
salon. Academicians were made there. D'Alem- 
bert was the secretary of the institution and, 
through her influence on him, mademoiselle did much 
to the making of reputations and the electing of 
members to the academy. Chastellux owed his 
admission in a great measure to her, and on her 
deathbed she secured that of La Harpe. Some 



MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINASSE. 79 

blamed mademoiselle for concerning herself in the 
affairs of the academy. Her friend Grimm defended 
her. " Why should women, who decide everything 
in France," he queried, "not decide the honors of 
literature ? " 

We now know Julie as the world knew her. 
We have next to become acquainted with her as 
her most intimate friends, those who loved her best, 
as D'Alembert knew her, and finally as he to whom 
she disclosed her soul, as Monsieur de Guibert knew 
her. 

Of all of Julie's friends, and she had many, the 
most appreciative among them, the most constant, 
the most devoted was D'Alembert — D'Alembert, the 
philosopher and mathematician, D'Alembert, secre- 
tary of the French Academy, chief of the Encyclo- 
pedists. Of the connection which existed between 
him and Julie we may say that it was the sweetest 
and most beautiful episode in the lives of both. 
In reference to it Julie remarked, and she remarked 
it, sighing, for the last time, to D'Alembert a 
short time before she died : "Of all the feelings 
which I have inspired, mine for 3-ou and yours for 
me is the only one that has not made me unhappy." 

Julie de Lespinasse and D'Alembert met for the 
first time in the salon of Madame du Deffand. 
They were immediately attracted to each other. 
" All things," said D'Alembert, " even our common 
fate, seemed destined to unite us. Both without 
family, without relatives, having experienced neg- 



80 MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 

lect, misfortune, and injustice, — nature seemed to 
have put us in the world to seek each other out 
like two reeds which cling together and support 
each other." 

When Julie left Madame du Deffand and went 
to live in the Rue de Belle Chasse, D'Alembert 
was residing with his foster mother on the Rue 
Michel-le-Comte. The Rue Michel-le-Comte was 
a long distance from the Rue de Belle Chasse, but 
no matter how bad the weather, D'Alembert never 
failed in his attendance at Julie's evening assem- 
blies. He was taken suddenly very ill. Julie 
went to nurse him. If the world had been dis- 
posed to criticise her for her action, which it was 
not, it could not have deterred her. In the cause 
of friendship Julie was always ardent, impetuous, 
careless of restriction or convention. D'Alembert's 
physician was Yery grave when questioned as to 
his patient's condition. He said that the air of the 
Rue Michel-le-Comte, which was by no means 
pure and free, might prove fatal. Hearing this, 
Julie straightway had D'Alembert removed from 
the Rue Michel-le-Comte to her own lodgings. 
D'Alembert recovered, but he did not change his 
quarters. He and Julie continued to live under 
the same roof, in all propriety and honor, each in a 
separate suite of rooms. 

Malignity never attacked mademoiselle and 
D'Alembert because of their intimacy. Rather 
they were the more respected, the more admired, 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 81 

on account of it. There was in it something lofty 
and noble. D'Alembert thus clescribed the nature 
of the union : " There is between us neither mar- 
riage nor love," he said, " only reciprocal esteem 
and all the gentleness of friendship." 

So far as Julie was concerned, the statement was 
doubtless a fact. But of his own feelings D'Alem- 
bert was not telling the whole truth. He loved 
Julie for sixteen years, loved her deeply, silently, 
untiringly, and with an unselfishness very rare. 

D'Alembert spoke of himself as an " old and sad 
philosopher." He believed that Julie was worthy 
of a younger, livelier man than he, and of a richer 
establishment than he could offer her. He assumed 
toward her the attitude of an elder brother. He 
admired her, he criticised her, he gave her his con- 
fidence. Each morning, before setting out on some 
project, some literary undertaking, he asked for her 
encouragement. Each evening he returned to her 
with the story of his day's doings. And Julie was 
always at hand, always waiting, kind, interested, 
sympathetic, an ideal sister. 

Together they discussed the affairs of the 
Academy, and of the Encyclopedists. They spoke 
of literature. Julie talked enthusiastically of 
Racine, Voltaire, and La Fontaine. She praised Le 
Sage and Prevost. She grew impassioned over 
Rousseau, Richardson, and Sterne, the author of the 
" Sentimental Journey," which she had translated 
into French. D'Alembert smiled a little at her pref- 



82 MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 

ereiices. She was too much influenced, he told 
her, by the presence or absence of feeling and 
warmth in a work. If a book had these qualities, 
he said, whatever its blemishes, however consider- 
able these blemishes were, she could not see them ; 
the book was perfect in her eyes. Feeling and 
warmth, he declared, were her domain. In all that 
pertained to these qualities she was never mistaken 
in her judgments. She Avas a sentimentalist, he 
said. 

One would like to linger indefinitely over this 
period of Julie's life, it was so calm, so peaceful, 
so pleasant, so different from the storm and stress 
that succeeded it. Julie and D'Alembert had been 
living under the same roof as brother and sister 
several years when people first began to notice a 
change in Julie. She continued to entertain her 
friends, the soul of every company, displaying as 
before her wonderful grace and tact and charm, but 
there was a nervousness, a restlessness in her man- 
ner, an occasional showing of irritability in her 
temper. She grew thinner, paler, sadder than be- 
fore. She became but the shadow of her former self. 
Her friends grew anxious about her. Poor D'Alem- 
bert's troubled gaze followed her everywhei'e. He 
sought to distract her from he knew not what, to 
console her, to amuse her. His attempts met with 
no success. He had to endure her coldness, and, 
what was harder still, her fretful humors full of 
gloom and bitterness. 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 85 

Julie was not ignorant of the change in herself. 
She sought to regain the sweet, gentle nature that 
had been hers. When she and D'Alembert were 
alone together and she saw that she had pained 
him by some short, hasty word, she would turn to 
him repentant, with tears in her eyes, and humbly 
ask his pardon. Yet even in those rare moments 
of reconciliation, there was a barrier between them, 
a barrier which Julie's reserve had raised. Twenty 
times a day D'Alembert determined to approach 
her, to implore an explanation of the change that 
had come over her, but each time he was repelled 
by her countenance, her words, her silence. 

One day he went to her with his portrait which 
he presented to her with the words, — 

" And tell yourself sometimes when looking at me, 
Of all those who love me, who loves me as he ? '* 

Julie received the portrait coldly, she called the 
words a " kindness." The term stabbed D'Alem- 
bert like a sword thrust. Why could she not see 
all that he was to her, all that he wished to be ? 
He stood before her silent, wounded. Perhaps in 
that moment she divined something of the extent 
of his affection and its steadfast purpose. We can 
imagine the hopeless sadness of the gaze she turned 
upon him. '' Happiness and tranquillity," she said, 
"are not for me except in death." It may have 
been that she realized the great love there beside 
her, and that she would not, could not, stretch out 
her hand and take it. 



84 MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 

The secret of the change in Julie, which puzzled 
the world, wdiich alarmed her friends, which 
D'Alembert sought in vain to understand, was not 
revealed until the publication of her letters to 
Guibert after her death. These letters are Julie's 
secret, they are Julie's self. In reading them we 
read something not found in books, we read the 
drama of human life as it actually happened, we 
read the story of a living, loving, suffering soul 
laid bare. 

It is with this living, loving, suffering soul 
known only to Guibert, the undeserving man to 
whom the letters were addressed, that we have now 
to become acquainted. We hesitate on the thresh- 
old of this intimacy to which the letters admit us. 
It is difficult for us who live in this century, in 
this country, whose tastes and characters are as 
they are, to know how to approach Julie de Lespi- 
nasse so closely. We can criticise her, we can even 
smile at her in her grand passion. She is to our 
comprehension so monotonous, so unreal, so foreign. 
And yet, if we will but understand her and sym- 
pathize with her as much as possible, we will find 
ourselves saying with her true and faithful friend 
D'Alembert, " dear and unfortunate Julie," and 
under these two titles forgiving her faults, as he 
against whom she most offended forgave them. 

Except as her friendship for D'Alembert may be 
called love, Julie was approaching middle age 
without having experienced the tender, or perhaps 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 85 

as applied to her we should say the stormy, passion. 
She had opened her salon in the Rue de Belle-Chasse 
and had been entertaining there some time when 
she met Monsieur de Mora, son of the Spanish am- 
bassador at the court of France. This Monsieur de 
Mora appears to have been quite a non-pareil of all 
that is most estimable and charming. Not only 
does mademoiselle, who may be supposed to have 
been slightly partial, eulogize him without stint ; 
all his contemporaries seem to have vied to see 
who could the most eloquently praise him. 

Mademoiselle de Lespinasse loved Monsieur de 
Mora and Monsieur de Mora loved Mademoiselle de 
Lespinasse. Fate, however, was not kind to their 
love. Monsieur had delicate lungs. His native 
climate was ordered for him. He left Paris August, 
1772, never to return. At the time of his departure 
mademoiselle's love for him and his for her had 
never been more ardent. They had parted with 
every promise of constancy and devotion. 

In September of the same year mademoiselle 
met the Comte de Guibert. With the moment of 
her meeting with Guibert the tragedy of her life 
began — it was a struggle between her two loves, 
the one for Mora, powerful, but dying slowly, re- 
morsefully, the other for Guibert, impetuous, irre- 
sistible, like a torrent driving everything before it. 

Monsieur de Guibert was a colonel in the French 
army. He had entered the world with his head 
held high. He was brilliant, impressive, dashing. 



86 MADEMOISELLE BE LE8PINAS8E. 

Society had made up its mind that he was destined 
for glory. Guibert himself was of society's opinion. 
He had published an essay on war tactics, he had 
competed at the Academy, he was composing trage- 
dies with which he intended to dazzle the world. 
He aimed at replacing the great writers of the 
past. He was a genius, he believed, and the world 
believed with him. Men spoke of him as " a soul 
which springs on all sides towards fame." He 
sprang, it is true, but he fell. Fame knows him 
now only as the man loved by Mademoiselle de 
Lespinasse. 

The fact that Monsieur de Guibert was ten years 
younger than mademoiselle may perhaps shock us. 
But it did not shock Parisian society. In France 
it was the custom for young men entering the 
world to court the patronage of certain charming 
women, older and more experienced than they. 
The women on their part enjoyed the gallantries of 
the young men. 

It must not be supposed from this, however, that 
the feelings of mademoiselle for Guibert were those 
of these other women for their proteges. She was 
not like the women of society, satisfied with being 
^^ preferred," content merely "to amuse and to 
please." " I live to love, I love to live," that was 
her motto. " I love you," she told Guibert. " All 
personal interest is hushed by those words. That 
' I ' of which Fenelon speaks is a myth. I feel in 
a positive manner that I am not I ; I am you, and in 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 87 

order to be you I have no sacrifice to malve. Your 
interests, your happiness, your affections, your 
pleasure — in them, mon ami, is the I tliat is dear to 
me, that is within me ; all else is external and for- 
eign to me. You alone in the universe can hold 
and occupy my being. My heart, my soul, can 
henceforth be filled, by you alone." Such senti- 
ments surely show that mademoiselle and her love 
for Guibert were far removed from the superficial- 
ities of women in society. 

Julie began by believing Guibert to be all that is 
great and noble. It did not take her long to dis- 
cover how shallow he was, how volatile, how insin- 
cere. However, the harm was done. She had 
given him her heart. She could not, try as she 
might, regain it. "The minds of most women," 
she exclaimed with La Rochefoucauld, "seem to 
strengthen their folly rather than their reason." 
With remorse and loathing she realized her folly, 
she compared the two men, de Mora, whom she had 
ceased to love, and Guibert, whom spite of herself 
she loved always and entirely. Then with clear- 
sighted vision she regarded Guibert. " And it is 
you who have made me guilty toward that man," 
she cried despairingly. " The thought revolts my 
soul." 

At length came the death of de Mora. He died 
at Bordeaux. Uuable to live without Julie, he was 
returning to her. He was faithful to the last. 
Julie's friends, who had divined that a very close 



88 MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 

relationsliip existed between her and the Spaniard, 
came to her with protestations of kindness and 
sympathy and consolation. " They do me the 
honor," wrote Julie, " to believe that I am crushed 
by the loss that I have met with." She was obliged 
to receive these protestations, conscious all the 
wiiile that she did not deserve them. Her dissim- 
ulations with D'Alembert and others who loved 
her filled her with horror. More than ever she 
judged her love for Guibert to be a crime. Because 
of it she hated herself, because of it she suffered 
the "tortures of the damned." And yet so dear 
was it to her, so much dearer than all will or reason 
or self-respect or happiness, that with Phyrrus she 
exclaimed, " I yield to the crime as a criminal." 

She abandoned herself unreservedly and utterly 
to her passion. " This soul," she writes, " carried 
away by an irresistible force, finds it hard to curb 
and calm itself; it longs for you, it fears you, it 
loves you, it wanders in a wilderness, but always it 
belongs to you." She lived only to receive Guibert's 
letters and his calls, to see him and to love him. 
" From every instant of my life," she tells him, " I 
suffer, I love you, I await you." And again, " There 
is nothing I have not tried to cheat my impatience," 
she declares ; " I am perpetually in motion, I have 
been everywhere and seen everything and I have 
but one thought." 

Guibert's letters were her every day desire, more 
necessary than her bread. " There is a certain 



MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINASSE. 89 

carrier," she writes, " who for the last year gives 
fever to my soul." She commands that her letters 
be delivered to her wherever she may be. " What 
are you reading so earnestly ? " asks an inquisitive 
neighbor at a dinner party. "Is it some paper for 
Monsieur Turgot?" "Precisely, madame," she 
replies. "It is a memorial I must give him pres- 
ently, and I wish to read it before I give it to him." 

What is in her mind as she stands there in her 
salon, surrounded by her friends, questioning, smil- 
ing, with an ease that has always been hers, but 
with an added restlessness ? When the last guest 
has gone, and she sits alone in the late evening, 
writing, these are her words : " Not once has my 
door been opened to-day that my heart did not beat ; 
there were moments when I dreaded to hear your 
name ; then again I was broken-hearted at not hear- 
ing it. So many contradictions, so many conflicting 
emotions are true, and three words explain them : I 
love you." And again, " The long nights, the loss 
of sleep," she confesses, " have made my love a sort 
of madness ; it has become a fixed idea, and I know 
not how I have escaped a score of times from utter- 
ing words that would have told the secret of my 
life and heart. Sometimes in society tears over- 
take me and I am forced to fl.y." 

Once society had been a pleasure, a happiness to 
Julie. Now she no longer enjoyed it. She despised 
it. She spoke of it with disgust and loathing. I can- 
not understand the ways of people in society," she 



90 MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 

writes; ''they amuse themselves and yawn, they 
love no one. All that seems to me deplorable. I 
prefer the torture that consumes my life to the 
pleasure that numbs theirs." And again, " Good 
God," she exclaimed, "was there ever such pride, 
such disdain of others, such contempt, such injus- 
tice, in a word such an assemblage of all that 
peoples hell and lunatic asylums? All that was 
last night in my apartment and the walls and ceil- 
ings did not crumble down — a miracle ! In the 
midst of the sorry writers, smatterers, fools, and 
pedants, I thought of you alone and of joiiv follies ; 
I regretted you, I longed for you with as much 
passion as if you were the most amiable being in 
existence." 

This antagonism to society is explained, as all else 
that is strange and incomprehensible about Julie is 
explained, by her love. Her love, which was her 
cross, her sorrow, left no room for the little joys and 
griefs of life. Of her successes in societ}^ she wrote, 
" From the moment I loved, I have felt disgust for 
such successes." Social disturbances no longer 
troubled her. She was calm and indifferent in their 
midst. " There is a passion of the soul," she de- 
clared, " which closes the soul to all the miseries 
which torture the world. A great love kills all the 
rest." Her past misfortune, in itself so sad, so 
pitiful, was forgotten. " I here avow," she declared, 
" that there is no sorrow comparable to that of a 
deep, unhappy passion. It has effaced my ten 



MADEMOISELLE BE LESPINASSE. 91 

years early torture. It seems to me that I live only 
since I love. All that affected me, all that rendered 
me unhappy until then is obliterated. You have 
filled my life. This sorrovsr, it is you hath caused 
it ; this soul of fire and pain is your creation." 

Social conventions and impossibilities were no 
barriei-s to Julie's love. When Guibert talked of 
marriage (for even in the midst of this passion he 
dared to talk of marriage, alleging that he must 
make a marriage of convenience, while in reality 
he was planning to make one of love), she listened, 
she criticised, she advised. " What I desire above 
all things is your happiness," she told him, '' and 
the means of procuring it will be the chief interest 
of my life." At length he married. Julie made 
the acquaintance of his wife, praised her. The 
new relationship did not abate mademoiselle's pas- 
sion one whit. The immensity of her love would 
admit of no boundary, no limit. 

Julie's love had robbed her of her will, her reason, 
her self-respect, her happiness. Gradually it was 
destroying her life. " The ills of my soul have 
passed to my body," she writes ; " I have fever daily, 
and my physician, who is the most skilful of men, 
departs, saying: "We have no remedies for the 
soul." 

Her friends, seeing the " eternal separation," as 
she expressed it, so near, gathered round her. 
Looking into their faces, receiving from them their 
final attentions and devotions, Julie felt that she 



92 MADEMOISELLE DE LESPINAS8E. 

was beholding clear sky, that she was nearing 
port. Yet her passion held her still. To Guibert 
on her last day she said : ^' If ever I should return 
to life, I would again emplo}^ it in loving you." 

On the night of her death, we are told, all her 
intimate friends were assembled in her room, and 
" all were weeping." One wonders whether Gui- 
bert was not the loudest in his grief. We know 
that D'Alembert was the quietest. D'Alembert 
as he knelt by her bed, dejected, dismayed, and 
bent his ear to catch her whispered word, her peti- 
tion for pardon, was thinking : " She no longer has 
the strength to speak or to hear me. I am forced 
like Phedre to deprive myself of tears that might 
trouble her last moments. I am losing without 
recovery the moment of my life which might be to 
me the most precious, that of telling her once more 
how dear she is to me, how much I share her woes, 
and how deeply I desire to end my life with hers. 
I would give all the moments that remain to me 
to be able in this instant to show her all the tender- 
ness of my heart in the hope of regaining 
hers." 

Guibert lamented Julie's death with extravagant 
eulogy. He mourned her as deeply as one of his 
shallow nature could mourn. 

D'Alembert was unconsoled and unconsolable in 
his loss. With Julie gone from his life, he felt, 
as he himself expressed it, "alone in the uni- 
verse." Each time that he returned to his sad 



MADEMOISELLE DE LESFINASSE. 93 

dwelling liis thought was, '^No one is waiting for 
me, no one will ever wait for me again." 

Thus ends the story of Julie de Lespinasse, a 
twofold romance, sweet, tender, sorrowful. And 
she, the heroine, fades from before our eyes, yet 
seems to leave behind a light bright and pervasive 
like the aureole. We recognize it as the light of 
genius ; for it has been truly said that such love as 
constituted the life of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse 
is a form of genius. 



MADAME ROLAND. 



Born at Paris, March 18, 1754. 

Died at Paris on the guillotine, Nov. 8, 1792. 



" Madame Roland is still the heroine of the Revolution. It 
is to her that the eye instinctively turns for a type and symbol 
of the earlier and finer characteristics of that movement. She 
was the genius and inspirer of the men whose eloquence over- 
threw the throne and founded the Republic." — Edward Gilpin 
Johnson. 

I. 

THE GIRLHOOD OF MADAME ROLAND. 

Manon Phlipon shrugged her shoulders, 
pouted, and averted her eyes from her parents, 
sitting in judgment upon her, to the world of Paris 
as it surged back and forth, lounging, trading, 
pleasure-seeking on the Pont Neuf beneath her 
window. It was the eternal question that was 
being urged — her marriage. This time papa 
would have her accept the proposals of some trades- 
man. Her foot tapped the floor indignantly. Her 
eyebrows went up contemptuously. Had she read 
Plutarch and the philosophers only to become the 
wife of a man bent upon getting rich and on cut- 
ting a good figure in his quarter ? 

94 




MADAME ROLAND. 
From a painting by Goupil. 



MADAME ROLAND. 95 

At length papa's voice sounded behind her, 
puzzled, ironic, and withal amused. " What kind 
of a man will suit you, Manon ? " he inquired. 

Manon turned from the window and faced her 
father. She was an intrepid looking little woman, 
short in stature, but of an erect, dauntless carriage. 
Of delicate, spirited features, dark-eyed, dark- 
haired, with a fresh color glowing in her cheeks, 
and of a pretty roundness of figure, she was as 
handsome as she w^as intrepid looking. 

" I don't know, papa," she answered, " but it will 
never be any one with whom I cannot share my 
thoughts and sentiments. I believe there is no 
happiness in marriage except where hearts are 
closely united." As she spoke directly, earnestly, 
enthusiasm and a multitude of youthful dreams 
and fancies were shining in her eyes. 

Monsieur Phlipon, however, did not see the 
enthusiasm, the youthful dreams and fancies. And 
had he seen them, he would not have understood ; 
his soul inhabited another region than that in 
which his daughter's had its dwelling. He ran his 
fingers perplexedly through his hair. 

"You think there is no one in business good 
enough for you," he demurred. " Is it a lawyer 
that you want? Women are never happy with 
such men ; they are bad tempered and have very 
little money." 

"But, papa," interposed his daughter, with a 
slight gesture of impatience, " I shall never marry 



96 MADAME EG LAND. 

anybody for his gown. I don't mean to say that I 
want a man of such and such a profession, but a 
man that I can love." 

" If I understand you, you believe that such a 
man cannot be found in business." 

" I confess that seems to me very probable. I 
have never found anj^ one there to my taste. And 
then, business itself disgusts me." 

The farrows deepened on Monsieur Phlipon's 
brow. " Nevertheless," he asserted, " it is a very 
pleasant thing to live tranquilly at home, while 
one's husband carries on a good business. Look 
at L.'s wife. Don't you think that she is happy ? 
Her husband has just gone out of business. He 
has bought a large property. Their house is well 
kept. They see a great deal of good society." 

"I cannot judge of the happiness of others," 
Manon sighed, wearily. " Mine, however, will 
never depend on wealth." 

Her father rose from his chair. It appeared he 
had had enough of this foolish talk. 

"You are making matters ver}^ difficult for your- 
self, Manon," he said, a little sternly. " What if 
you do not find your ideal ? " 

" I shall die an old maid," was the unflinching 
reply. 

"Perhaps that will be harder than you think. 
However, you still have time. But remember, one 
day you will be alone, the crowd of suitors will 
end — you know the fable." 



MADA3IE ROLAND. 97 

" Oh, I shall revenge myself by meriting happi- 
ness ; injustice cannot deprive me of it." 

Monsieur Phlipon lifted his eyes. " Oh, there 
you go in the clouds," he exclaimed despairingly, 
compassionately. Abruptly he left the room. 

Alone with her mother, Manon drew a hassock 
to her mother's feet, seated herself upon it, and 
gazed up lovingly, a bit contritely into Madame 
Phlipon's face. 

" Do you, too, think me a naughty, stubborn girl? " 
she queried. ''Do you, too, believe that it is my 
duty to marry this man whom I do not love ?" 

Madame Phlipon did not answer immediately. 
She sat looking with a melancholy tenderness into 
the earnest face upturned to hers. With a gentle 
caress, rare in a woman of her undemonstrative 
nature, she touched her daughter's cheek. 

"He has a great reputation for integrity and 
regular habits," she urged. " He is acquainted 
with your singular ways of thinking, professes 
high esteem for you, and will be proud to follow 
your counsels." And in a lighter, almost a playful 
tone, she added, " You will have him in leading 
strings, my dear." 

Manon pouted and dropped her eyes, fingering 
the border of her mother's apron. " But I do not 
want a husband that must be led," she protested. 
" He would be too unwieldly a child." 

Her mother smiled. " You are a funny girl, 
Manon," she said. " You will not have a master, 
yet you will not rule." 



98 MADAME ROLAND. 

" Understand me, dear mamma," quickly, eagerly, 
interposed the girl. " I would marry a man wor- 
thy of my esteem, one with whose will a compli- 
ance would be no disgrace to me and who would 
not find his happiness lessened by complying with 
mine." 

Madame Phlipon sighed and shook her head 
doubtfully. " Not so often as you imagine, my 
dear child, is happiness composed of this perfection 
of congeniality. If happiness depended upon noth- 
ing else, there would be little of it found in our 
marriages." 

"Then there would be few that I should envy," 
declared Manon in her most decisive tone. 

" Perhaps not," acquiesced her mother. " i^nd 
yet, among the marriages that you despise, there 
may be many preferal)le to a single state." Mad- 
ame Phlipon's gaze wandered from her daughter. 
A strange, far-away look was in her eyes. And 
when she spoke again, which was after a brief 
pause, it was in a sad voice, but very quietly and 
gently. " I may be called out of the world soon," 
she said. " You will be left alone with your father. 
He is still young. Many changes may occur in 
the home where you have been so happy. My ten- 
derness makes me fear for you. It v/ould make my 
last moments easy could I see you married before I 
die to a worthy man." 

Madame Phlipon's words terrified Manon. She 
had not thought of the future, or of the possibility 



MADAME ROLAND. 99 

of losing her mother ; her mother who was clearer 
to her than her own life. She sat motionless, gaz- 
ing at her mother in an agony of new-born doubts 
and fears. 

Her mother, seeing the trouble in her eyes, 
sought to comfort her, and turned upon her a faint, 
reassuring smile. Before the smile, Manon's self- 
control gave way. She knelt beside her mother 
and clung to her, weeping passionately. 

"Why are you so alarmed, my dear child?" 
asked her mother calmly, soothingly. '' We must 
weigh possibilities. In health we must provide 
ourselves with consolations for the time of sickness 
and death. The present occasion furnishes us 
with an opportunity for such consolation. A wor- 
thy man offers you his hand. You will not always 
have me with you. Do not reject a husband who, 
it is true, may not be your ideal, but w^ho will love 
and cherish you, and with whom you may be 
happy." 

Manon lifted her head from her mother's shoul- 
der and gazed at her sorrowfully through her teare. 
" Yes, my dear mamma," she exclaimed in gentle 
irony, " as happy as you have been ! " 

Madame Phlipon could make no reply. Manon 
had arrived at the unanswerable. Madame must 
hold her peace. She pressed her hands tremu- 
lously together and looked away. She had ex- 
pressed herself for the last time upon the subject of 
Manon's marriage. Never did she refer to it again. 



oi 



too MADAME ROLAND. 

Manon had spoken impetuously, like one im- 
pelled by a sudden and strong conviction. She 
had always been a silent witness of the disparity 
that existed between her parents. But the perfect 
peace that reigned in her home had seemed to her 
the symbol of happiness. It was not until recently, 
when her own dawning w^omanhood was quicken- 
ing her powers of perception and understanding, 
that she had come to realize at what a cost her 
mother was maintaining this domestic calm. She 
observed that, in the family discussions, when her 
mother was unable to carry her point, she appeared 
to yield it, without a scruple — and this, when she 
was unquestionably in the right. Manon's love of 
justice was violated, her indignation was aroused. 
She constituted herself her mother's " watch-dog," 
as she expressed it. She took her part in the fam- 
ily debates, became her sturdy and unflinching 
advocate. Yet it was only when the family was 
united that Manon assumed the partisan r$le. In 
his absence Monsieur Phlipon was nothing less 
than the beloved husband and father. Manon and 
her mother never spoke of him except in commen- 
dation. "Yes, my dear mamma, as happy as you 
have been ! " Those words, that tone of irony, 
were Manon's first criticism of her father. And by 
her silence, her tremulous gesture, and her averted 
glance, for the first time Madame Phlipon re- 
proached her husband. 

It must not be supposed, however, because of 



MADAME BOLAND, 101 

this cloud that overhung the Phlipon home, that 
the sun did not shine there. The Phlipons had 
their sunshine as well as other folks. One has only 
to read that charming record of a girlhood, which 
Manon wrote in later days beliind her prison bars, 
to appreciate the pleasant, cheerful, serene beauty 
of that sunshine. It is a delight to pass into its 
beauty with Manon, to make the acquaintance of 
her family and friends, to become the confidant of 
her high thoughts and her romantic visions, to live 
with her her active, intelligent, and truly noble 
life. 

Manon spoke of herself as a child of the Seine. 
The house in which her father, an engraver by 
trade, had his shop and dwelling faced the river 
and looked upon the ever new and ever shifting 
pictures of the Pont Neuf and the Quai de I'Hor- 
loge. Her own little window opened to the north. 
Before it, at the close of every day, Manon kneeled. 
Her eyes sought the vast expanse of blue, stretch- 
ing from the cool east to the west, where the roofs 
and tree- tops of Chaillot were glowing in the 
warmth of the setting sun. The view of the 
heavens, the sense of God's nearness, and joy in her 
own existence awoke in her young soul an emotion 
so overwhelming that tears filled her eyes. She 
felt the gift of her life to be inexpressibly precious. 
She longed to make of it something strong and 
noble. Her imagination soared to the heights 
where the martyrs and heroes had trod. 



102 MADAME BOLAND, 

We may be grateful for this glimpse of Manoii 
kneeling at her chamber window. We are behold- 
ing a great spirit in its early spring, its " time of 
blossoming," its " hour of beauty," as the Greeks 
called it. Manon came, in time, to climb those 
heights whither her imagination w^as so loftily 
pointing her the way. We shall admire her when 
she has attained those heights. Yet will we ever 
find her so lovable, so pure, so utterly unworldly 
and unspoiled as now ? 

Marie Jeanne Phlipon, as she was christened, 
was a heroic little person. But, we are glad to 
discover, she was as real and natural as she was 
heroic. She had her times of being naughty like 
ordinary little girls. At such times it was not her 
father's whippings that reformed her. It was the 
word " mademoiselle " spoken by her mother in a 
stern tone and with a displeased expression. The 
whippings Manon received in silent indigna- 
tion. But to hear herself called " mademoiselle " 
in that tone, with that accompanying look, she could 
not endure. In order to bring back the smile to 
her mother's face and the tenderness to her voice, 
and to hear again the fond little nickname " Manon," 
she became at once a repentant and obedient 
daughter. 

By the time she was four years old Manon had 
learned to read. Her parents were delighted with 
her precocity. She was their only child, their chief 
interest. They spared no pains to give her an ex- 



MADAME ROLAND, 108 

cellent education. She was placed under the 
instruction of able masters, one to teach her writ- 
ing, history, and geography, another for the piano, 
another for the guitar, another for dancing. Her 
father himself taught her drawing. 

Manon found learning a pleasure. Often in the 
early morning, impelled by her thirst for knowl- 
edge, she would steal out of bed and into the al- 
cove that opened out of the family parlor and that 
served as her study. There she would sit, bare- 
footed, clothed only in her little nigh1>gown, con- 
ning her lessons and writing her exercises. 

Madame Phlipon was a devout Catholic, and 
Manon early received her instruction in church 
ritual. She was sent to the catechism class at the 
parish church, and, to the delight of her uncle 
Bimont, a young cure of the parish, in charge of the 
class, she carried off all the prizes. Several amus- 
ing stories are told apropos of her ^'theological 
erudition." In one of these stories we behold 
Manon calmly and glibly recounting the order of 
spirits in the celestial hierarchy. We are not 
surprised to hear that the eyes of the visiting 
rector opened wide in amazement. In another 
story Manon appears, a charming brunette little 
maiden, perched on the knee of her father's guest, 
relating with a solemnity suitable to the subject, 
the whole of the Athanasian creed. Truly the 
child merited her reward, which came in the form 
of a narration by her father's guest, of the wonderful 



104 MADAME ROLAND. 

tale of Tanger whose nose was so long that he was 
obliged, when he walked, to twist it round his 
arm. It is a relief to find Manon making the 
acquaintance of this gentleman of fabulous nose. 
He must have been something of a comfort after 
the creeds and spirits and celestial hierarchy with 
which her infant mind was fed. 

At the same time that Manon was learning all 
that her masters and the young cure, her uncle 
could teach her, she was receiving instruction of 
another sort from her mother. She was being 
initiated in the arts and crafts of the kitchen. 
She made omelets, she picked herbs, she skimmed 
the pot, and many a morning saw her trudging to 
the greengrocer's and purchasing, in that sedate 
manner which she had borrowed from her mamma, 
the parsley or the salad that the servant had for- 
gotten. 

When Manon went to the greengrocer's she was 
always very plainly dressed. But on Sundays and 
fete days she appeared in the costume of a truly 
" grand " lady. Little girls in her day and in her 
quarter did not dress like little girls ; they were 
their mammas in miniature. Tight-fitting waist, 
long train, and fancy trimmings were the essentials 
of Manon's " Sunday best." On Sundays Manon 
carried her prayer-book in her hand, and on those 
f^te days that meant a birthday or a wedding, or 
a christening in the family, she took with her 
some sample of her own work, a head that she had 



MADAME BOLANI), 105 

drawn, or a copperplate engraving accompanied 
with complimentary verse and nosegay. 

Outwardly, you see, Manon's life was very simple 
and humdrum, similar to that of any member of 
her class, a class which at that time was called the 
" bourgeois " of Paris. It was only inwardly, in 
that which had to do with her thoughts, her mind, 
her spirit, that her life was at all remarkable. 

Manon's chief stimulus to this inner life that she 
was leading came from her reading. She loved her 
books. Nothing but the promise of a flower could 
tempt her from them. Her father's library offered 
attractions of a most conglomerate sort — a history 
of Turkey, a treatise on heraldry, the '' Memoirs of 
Mademoiselle de Montpensier," the " Civil Wars of 
Appias," the Bible in old French, of which she was 
very fond, and the " Lives of the Saints." This latter 
volume was a great favorite with her. She used 
to dream over its pages, sighing for the times when 
the Christians, oppressed and persecuted by the 
pagans, attained the glory of the martyr's crown. 

Her father's library, however, could not satisfy 
Manon. Having conquered the little world of 
literature therein contained, like Alexander, 
she looked about for other and greater worlds. 
One among her father's apprentices, it chanced, 
was a reader. He used to bring his books to the 
shop with him and keep them in a secret corner of 
the studio, the "atelier " the room was called. In 
a happy moment Manon discovered the secret 



106 MADAME BOLANLK 

corner. Then began a course of stealthy and 
systematic borrowing. One by one Manon took 
the books and read them and returned them. If 
the young man was aware that his secret corner 
had a constant visitor, he kept the knowledge to 
himself. Manon was permitted to go on her way, 
along the path of knowledge, unmolested. Thus 
she became acquainted with Fenelon and Tasso 
and portions of Voltaire, and with a book that 
took possession of her soul as no other book had 
ever done. This book was " Plutarch's Lives." 
As she read she became the disciple of Cato and 
Socrates and Brutus. She was a republican 
with them. The book was her constant compan- 
ion. On Sundays, even, she could not be parted 
from it, and all through one Lent she carried 
it to church with her, in lieu of her prayer-book, 
and read it during service. 

Close intercourse with the Christian saints and 
the heroes of antiquity, with lives spent in self- 
abnegation and in the pursuit of high ideals, pro- 
duced in Manon a state of exaltation and spiritual 
awe. The mystical rites of the church appealed 
deeply to her. As the time for her first communion 
drew near, and its solemn meaning was impressed 
upon her by friends and cure, she aspired to pre- 
pare herself by some act of devotion and sacrifice. 
Separation from her mother seemed to her the 
heaviest cross and so, she came to the conclusion, 
that was the one that she must take up and carry. 



MADAME nOLANB. 107 

One evening she surprised her parents by appear- 
ing suddenly before them and tearfully, zealously 
imploring that she be permitted to enter a convent 
and prepare for the sacrament. 

Thus it happened that Manon Phlipon became 
an inmate of the Congregation. For a year she 
dwelt in its pure, serene atmosphere, continuing 
with her studies, winning the love of the young 
girls, her schoolmates, and of the holy sisters, her 
directors, and coming in time, after a period of 
prayer and meditation and exhortation, to receive 
her first communion. Her hours of recreation she 
used to pass reading and dreaming in the quiet 
convent garden, amid the breezes and the bright 
foliage and the sweet-smelling flowers. Often she 
would leave the garden to kneel in the dimly 
lighted chapel and listen to the chanting of the 
choir and the roll of the organ, and at such 
times, her heart full of gratitude and adoration, 
would speak a silent word to God. 

Manon was of too serious a nature to make 
friends readily. For the first part of her stay at 
the Congregation her only intimate was Sister 
Agathe, one of the lay sisters, who served Manon 
at table, and made her bed, and was kindness 
itself to her. She admitted Manon to the privacy 
of her little cell, to her books and her canary. 
There was something very pretty in this friendship 
between Manon and the poor nun. It is pleasant 
to know that it endured to the close of Manon's 



108 MADAME BOLAND. 

life and was a comfort to her in the dark days just 
before the end. 

The chief friendship of Manon's convent days, 
however, was not this one with Sister Agathe. It 
was with a young girl who came to the Congrega- 
tion when Manon had been living there some 
months. The girl's name was Sophie Cannet. 
She arrived at the convent one evening with her 
sister. Manon was first attracted to her because of 
the sensibility she showed in parting from her 
mother. Later, as she came to know Sophie better, 
she loved her for her calmness and her coolness 
and her intelligence of mind. She did not like 
Henriette, the other sister, so well ; she was older 
and she was gay and frivolous, almost too much 
so, Manon thought. Manon attached herself to 
Sophie with all the fervor of her fervent nature. 
In the society of others she had always worn a 
" veil," as she expressed it. With Sophie she put 
off the veil ; she was frankness itself. Sophie was 
devout like Manon and as serious-minded as she. 
In character and tastes the two girls were very con- 
genial. They worked and read and talked together. 
Their attachment was an ideal one, in which what- 
ever was most intimate, most intellectual, most 
spiritual in the lives of both was shared. They 
lived, one might say, each in the other's thoughts. 
Throughout the convent they came to be known 
as " the inseparables." 

At length Manon's year of residence at the Con- 



MADAME ROLAND. 109 

gregation drew to a close. Maiion did not leave 
the convent without regrets, regrets for those 
whom she was leaving, the sisterhood of nuns, the 
devoted Agathe, and her beloved Sophie. There 
were tears when the final parting came, promises 
of reunion, and protestations of enduring affection. 

Manon returned to her parents and to the world. 
She carried away from the convent with her a 
strengthened faith and i)iety, and a secret resolve 
that, when she came of age, she would consecrate 
herself to the religious life. Saint Francis of Sales 
had made a conquest of her heart. She deter- 
mined to make him her patron. 

Circumstances, however, were conspiring to turn 
Manon from her choice of the religious life. The 
world was before her. Distractions, pleasures, and 
a wider range of reading were awaiting her. She 
was entering her teens, she was opening her eyes, 
she was touching life at various points and dis- 
covering its complex character. 

On Sundays and fete days Manon went to walk 
with her papa in the Bois de Boulogne and the 
alleys of Saint Cloud. She could not but observe 
that the people whom she met regarded her with 
admiration. She heard their flattering comments. 
She awoke to the fact that she was pretty. 

Monsieur Phlipon, as may be imagined, was 
very proud of his attractive young companion. He 
always introduced her with a flourish. '* This is 
my daughter," he would proclaim with an air of 



110 MADAME BOLAND. 

triumph, and when she spoke, his expression 
seemed to say, " There ! Is n't she bright? Is n't 
she clever?" His pride touched yet embarrassed 
Manon. She was glad of it, as a proof of his love 
for her, but she wished that it was not so evident. 

Manon could forgive her father's pride in her, 
but she could not forgive the vanity which she 
discovered taking root in her own heart. After 
these pleasure-walks with her papa, she sat in 
judgment on herself. With a contemptuous shrug, 
she admitted that she had been elated by the ad- 
miring glances, the flattering comments of the 
crowd, that she had been happy in the conscious- 
ness of her becoming holiday attire and her own 
good looks. Stern little moralist, she scorned her- 
self. Had she been born, endowed with mind and 
soul, merely to glitter to the eye like the flowers of 
a parterre ? In righteous wrath she determined to 
make war upon this " enemy " of hers, this vanit}^ 
She swore against it " implacable hostility." She 
" traced it in its windings." She entered upon a 
holy crusade against " the abominable me." 

When on the next fete day papa proposed a 
jaunt to St. Cloud, she shook her head. 

'' The fountains are to play. There will be a 
world of company," he urged. 

But the little stoic shook her head. " Dear papa," 
she said, " I would like better to go to Mendon." 

At Mendon nature ran wild. There a forest of 
trees was to be found, the branches of the spotted 



MADAME ROLAND. Ill 

fern, and the flowers of the gay woodbme. The 
place had few visitors save the birds and the swift- 
footed fawns. Manon loved Mendon, its solitude 
and its uncultivated beauty. While her father 
and mother lay taking their naps on the turf and 
the fallen leaves, she sat beside them watching 
the lights and shadows, learning the lessons taught 
by the trees and the flowers. At such moments 
she was nearer in spirit to the mysticism of the 
convent than to the glitter of St. Cloud. She had 
slain her " implacable " enemy — vanity. She was 
triumphant over the " abominable me." 

Spite of these soul-inspiring sojourns to Mendon, 
however, and spite of her triumphant stoicism, the 
world continued to close about Manon. Her visits 
with her relatives, as well as her walks to St. Cloud, 
were showing her life. She was learning to know 
people, their relations to one another, their various 
ranks and grades. 

Much of Manon's time was spent with her 
grandma Phlipon, on the island of St. Louis. The 
grandma was a bright, gay, vivacious little lady. 
Manon was very fond of her. One day grandma 
and granddaughter went together to make a call 
upon a rich and so-called "great" lady, in whose 
house the grandma had once been a governess. 
Manon observed that the servants of the house 
dared to compliment her in what seemed to her 
a too familiar manner ; that the great lady seated 
under her " canopy," berouged, beruffled, and be- 



112 MADAME ROLAND. 

wigged, '' presumed," so Manon termed it, to pat- 
ronize her and her grandmamma. Her republican 
little soul was stirred. She averted her eyes from 
the servants and the great lady, and studied the 
furniture and the decorations of the room. 

" You have a lucky hand," said the great lady, 
Madame de Boismorel, to Manon. " Did you ever 
try it in a lottery ? " 

" Never, madame, I am not fond of gaming." 

" So ! Indeed ! 'T is a serious little girl this. 
You are of a devotional turn, are you not, my 
dear?" 

" I know my duty to God, and I try to do it." 

" That is a good girl. You wish to take the veil, 
is it not so ? " 

" I do not know my secret destiny and I do not 
seek to penetrate it." 

Manon's cheeks were flaming, her heart was 
thumping violently. What right had this vain, 
vulgar person to pry into her innermost life, to 
treat her noble sentiments so coldly and iron- 
ically? She was relieved, indeed, when at length 
grandma rose from her chair, and she knew that 
the call was at an end. 

On the way home she did not once refer to the 
call, but she thought a great deal about it. Then 
there was in the world a superiority other than that 
of virtue and talent, she reflected. She and her 
grandma, it appeared, were the inferiors of that dis- 
agreeable woman ; they had been subjected to her 



MADAME BOLANB. 113 

patronage, a patronage which her grandma seemed 
not to mind, but to accept rather as her just due. 
Manon knew not what to make of it all. She was 
indignant, she was rebellious. Alone in her own 
room she hurried to her books and sought to for- 
get in reading of " the good and the true " what 
she had seen demonstrated of " the wrong and the 
untrue." 

But she could not be forever reading, forever 
sitting grave and thoughtful in her little room. 
She must live with the rest of the world, and living, 
she must behold the vanities that were on every side. 
She went with her mother and her uncle Bimont 
to the coart at Versailles. Through the courtes}^ 
of her masters and her relatives she attended the 
gatherings of telle esprits so prevalent at Paris. 
Everywhere she saw things to shock and disgust 
her. She criticised the grandeur of the king, the 
extravagance of court institutions, and decided 
that " had she been given a choice before coming 
into the world, she would have chosen a republic 
in preference to a kingdom." She turned up her 
nose at much that came under her notice in the gath- 
erings of belle esprits. She immediately detected 
the pretention and conceit of those Avho read verses 
and portraits, and the insincerity of those who ap- 
plauded. Yet little by little, her lofty contempt 
was abating. As she grew in worldly wisdom, she 
grew more tolerant. " The longer I live the more 
I study and observe," she declared ; '' the more 



114 MADA3IE BO LAND. 

deeply I feel that we ought to be indulgent to our 
fellows." 

The truth was, Manon had become a very 
rational and free-thinking young woman. She 
had departed a long distance from the mysticism of 
her convent days. She had passed through all 
stages of religious belief, had been in turn Jansen- 
ist, deist, theist, sceptic, and idealist. At length 
she had attained a broad, philosophic state of mind 
which she never forsook. She believed in God 
and the immortality of the soul. These were her 
only dogmas and they made her happy. She was 
convinced that it was to her own and her neigh- 
bor's interest to do right. This was her only moral 
code and it made her virtuous. 

It was by reading that Manon was helped to 
that broad philosophic state of mind which she 
had attained. Manon was everywhere on the look- 
out for books, at the houses of her friends, at the 
circulating libraries. She read widely, she read 
intelligently. Her cure, anxious to preserve the 
faith of his young parishioner, lent her the works 
of the defenders of the church. She read them 
and then, when she had finished, she turned her 
attention to the books which these defenders of the 
church refuted, the productions of Diderot, 
d'Alembert and Raynal, the literature of the 
encyclopedists. Dogmatic and philosophic thought 
interested her especially. But she enjoyed also 
that which was distinctly literary. She read 



MADAME ROLAND. 115 

Bossuet, Fenelon, Madame de Sevigne, and Don 
Quixote. 

Some of Manon's pleasantest reading was done 
during numerous backgammon parties at the house 
of a certain abbe, a friend of her uncle Bimont. 
While her mother and uncle were engaged agree- 
ably at the board with the abbe and his housekeeper, 
Manon browsed in the abbe's library. She found 
many rare treats among liis books. Therefore, 
though she disliked card playing, she was always 
sorry when the game of backgammon came to an 
end and the time to 2^0 home arrived. 

Reading, it should be noted, was not a pastime 
with Manon. It was a serious business, a self- 
educating process to which her vigorous mind lent 
itself naturalh\ She took notes of what she read, 
meditated thereon, and discussed salient points 
with her friends. In this way she " converted into 
her own substance," as she herself expressed it, the 
thoughts of the great writers ; slie " became per- 
meated with their essence." 

Manon's letters to Sophie were filled with 
extracts from her reading and the reflections her 
reading awakened. Manon's letters to Sophie I 
Yes, for Manon and Sophie no longer talked with 
each other except by letter. Sophie had left the 
convent and Paris. She had returned to her 
home at Amiens. Before she went, however, the 
mothers of the two girls had met and " conse- 
crated," so to speak, with their approval the 



116 MADAME ROLAND. 

friendship of their daughters. With the apparent 
frivolousness of maturity the mothers had smiled 
when the girls were solemnly vowing never to 
forget each other, but to love each other always 
with the same warmth and devotion. Of course 
Manon and Sophie, from what seemed to them 
their superior heights of wisdom, had regarded 
their mothers indignantly and renewed their vows 
with even greater fervor. 

Manon and Sophie were separated. Letters 
were their only medium, their one means of con- 
versation. The letters fairly flew between them. 
They throbbed and thrilled with a tumult of girlish 
thoughts, feelings, and ideals. Manon's very life 
was put on paper and dispatched to her dearest 
Sophie, her life and her ever present, ever absorb- 
ing love. She watched for the postman with the 
impatience of a lover and, when the letter from 
Amiens arrived, she could never delay its reading, 
but must open and devour it wherever she 
happened to be when it was delivered. Occasion- 
ally this was at the dinner table. She forgot where 
she was and shed tears over the sentimental pas- 
sages. Papa and mamma smiled. From the 
opposite side of the table came these words in 
Grandma Phlipon's terse tones : " When you 
have a husband and children, my dear Manon, this 
friendship will soon vanish and you will think no 
more of Mademoiselle Cannet." 

Manon, afterwards describing the scene to 



MADAME BOLAND. 117 

Sophie, expressed her revolt at grandma's impos- 
sible idea. 

"It surprises me," she declared, " to find that so 
many people regard friendship as a frivolous and 
chimerical sentiment. Almost every one seems to 
imagine that the lightest emotion of another sort 
is capable of changing and effacing it. They con- 
sider it the mere makeshift of an unoccupied heart. 
Do you believe, Sophie," she inquired fondly, 
rhetoricall}^, " that any change of circumstances 
would break the tie between us ? " 

It is a pleasure to know Manon as she appears 
in these letters to Sophie; she is so warm and 
human. One forgets for the moment the pedestaled 
position to which she later ascended. Sometimes, 
it is true, her great aspiring nature asserts itself and 
she impulsively exclaims, " Come to Paris, Sophie ; 
there is nothing like residence in a place where art 
and science, the presence of great men, and all 
sorts of intellectual resources, concur and vie with 
one another. How interesting it would be for us 
to study and walk together. How I desire to 
know men of ability of every sort. Sometimes I 
feel tempted to don a hat and breeches, for the 
sake of being free to look about and discover what 
is best in all orders of talent. I have heard tales 
of women assuming such a disguise from motives 
of affection or self-sacrifice. Ah, if I were a little 
less rational and circumstances were a little more 
in my favor I swear that I have the requisite zeal." 



118 MADAME ROLAND. 

For the most part, however, she lived very con- 
tentedly in the twilight atmosphere of her home, 
the " back shop," the " entresol," as she playfully 
designated her humble surroundings. She walks 
with her papa. She reads and sews with her 
mamma. She studies in her little closet. She 
thinks of Sophie, her absent friend, and sings her 
praises to the accompaniment of her guitar. 

Now and then an interesting anecdote varies the 
peaceful but monotonous story of her life. She 
visits the painter Greuze in his studio and is charmed 
with his picture " The Broken Pitcher." She can 
find but one fault with the painting — he has not 
made his little one sorrowful enough to prevent her 
going back to the fountain. She tells Greuze this 
and her pleasantry amuses him. She tries to see 
Rousseau. Overflowing with girlish enthusiasm 
she welcomes the first opportunity that promises a 
glimpse of him, her " chief est " hero. A friend of 
her father wishes to propose to the illustrious 
philosopher the composition of a few musical airs. 
Eagerly Manon undertakes the commission, writes a 
charming letter to her hero, and naively announces 
that she will call for the answer. Behold her, 
then, climbing the long, narrow stairway of the 
house in the Rue Pltoi^re and tremblingly, rever- 
ently knocking on the door. She feels that she is 
standing at the entrance of a temple. The severe 
Ther^se clad in round cap, simple house gown, and 
big apron opens to her. " No " is the answer to 



MADAME EOLAND. 119 

every question which the fervent little worshipper 
inquires. Manon is forced to retire without so 
much as a glimpse of her adored philosopher. 

It is a life such as tliis, healthful, natural, happy, 
that the letters to Sophie reflect. At length there 
steals into them a new strain, sighing, plaintive, 
and insistent, the theme of Manon's lovers. 
Manon's early piety has become an incident of the 
past. Her native vanity, against which she had 
once so vigorously struggled, and her love of 
attention are supreme. " From the moment," she 
says in her Memoirs, ''when a girl attains her de- 
velopment, a swarm of suitors attends her footsteps, 
like the bees that buzz about an opening flower." 

Half mockingly, half vauntingly she causes her 
lovers to defile before us. They come, a motley 
throng, very like the characters in some comic 
opera, of all grades and trades, the music master, 
the dealer in diamonds, the rising young doctor, 
and even the family butcher, apparently all the 
eligible bachelors and widowers of the Place Dau- 
phine. Indeed, so numerous are they that we are 
inclined to surmise that some are there merely by 
reason of the heroine's creative fancy. 

Such are her lovers as they appear in her Me- 
moirs. In her letters they do not come so in a mass, 
but individually, and therefore they appear to be 
more real. Manon is satirical on the subject of her 
suitors, she makes herself merry over them and 
laughter at their expense rings through her letters. 



120 MADAME BOLANB. 

Nevertheless they vex her. The feelmgs they 
awaken in her puzzle her. " My sentiments strike 
me as very odd," she says. " What can be stranger 
than for me to hate any one because he loves me, 
and from the moment I try to love him ? Yet so 
it is." The truth is, Manon is very happy in her 
home, with her books and in the companionship of 
her mother. She has no wish to marry. 

The time, however, is approachiiig when Manon 
will not be so happy. Sorrows are in store for 
her as for every woman who has ceased to be a 
girl. Her devoted mother, as we have seen, 
sought to prepare her for these sorrows and urged 
matrimony upon her as a shield against them. 
Until that moment when her mother spoke, 
Manon, secure in present joy, without a thought of 
future pain or se]Daration, had wept at her mother's 
warning. Never again did she or Madame 
Phlipon renew the conversation that had been a 
sad one for them both. Apparently their lives 
were as peaceful and happy as before. Yet there 
was a difference, an added tenderness on the 
mother's part, a newly awakened anxiety on the 
daughter's ; the thought of the future was in the 
mind of each. Manon especially was changed. 
She was constantly beset with apprehensions for 
her mother's health. She followed Madame 
Phlipon about with a newly awakened sense of 
responsibility. Her childlike carelessness of spirit 
had departed, not to return. 



MADAME BOLANB. 121 

Indeed, SO concerned was Manon that lier anxiety 
was present even in lier dreams. One night, the 
eve of Whitsuntide, her dreams were especially 
troubled. In them, it seemed to her, some danger 
was threatening her mother. She was wakened by 
a hand gently laid on her arm and a voice, her 
mother's, softly speaking her name. She stretched 
out her arms glad to be awake and to have her 
mother safe at her side. The day, being a fete 
day, Whitsuntide, was spent at Mendon. Manon 
and her father and mother once more enjoyed 
together the forest shade, the woodbine, and the 
spotted fern and all the beauties of their favorite 
retreat. 

They returned to the city on Tuesday. On the 
next day, Wednesday, Manon and her mother had 
planned to make a call. When the time came, 
however, Madame Phlipon was too tired to go. 
She sent Manon without her in the care of the 
servant. Manon set out feeling anxious on her 
mother's account. She made her call very brief. 
All the while she was thinking of her mother, 
dreading that she might be ill, longing to see her 
and assure herself that she was well. She hurried 
home regardless of the servant's coimotative remark 
that the weather was extremely favorable for a 
walk in the gardens. 

At the doorway of her house she was met with 
the news which she had been fearing : her mamma 
had been taken ill. Manon hastened up the stair- 



122 MADAME ROLAND. 

way to her mother's room. The attendants who 
were at Madame Phlipon's side made way for the 
pale girl as she entered. The sick woman's 
face lighted a moment in recognition. But she 
could not speak, she could not move ; paralysis 
had deprived her of all power of action. 

Manon was immediately beside her mother, car- 
ing for her, giving orders and carrying out these 
orders before another could execute them for her. 
She held the candles while the priest administered 
the extreme unction. She stood at the foot of the 
bed and kept her eyes fixed steadfastly on the face 
of her adored and dying mother. It was all a 
dream, she told herself, one of those hideous 
nightmares, from which she Avould wake to feel 
again the gentle touch of her mother's hand, to 
hear again the soft tones of her mother's voice 
speaking her name, '^ Manon." 

After the end they took Manon away, and tried 
to make her understand that her mother was dead. 
But Manon would not believe them. It was too 
terrible. She could not believe them. At length 
the blessing of unconsciousness came to her. She 
forgot all in a dreamless sleep. 

She woke at last, understanding. She had been 
very ill. She was still weak. Every one was kind 
to her. They came to see her, bringing books and 
flowers — her father among the rest. Monsieur 
Phlipon talked to her with good enough intentions, 
but in a way that made her feel his distance from 



MADAME BOLAND. 123 

her. She told herself sadly that she was com- 
pletely an orphan. Her life was very empty, she 
reflected, she was quite alone. 

It was during the dark days following her 
mother's death and her own illness that Manon 
first came to know the work of Rousseau inti- 
mately. She previously had had some acquaint- 
ance with him. She had read him, but she had 
read him critically. Now life was changed for 
her. She herself was changed. Rousseau was the 
food which her soul craved. She turned to him as 
in her early childhood she had turned to Plutarch. 
She found that he expressed what she herself had 
vaguely felt, he voiced her thoughts and senti- 
ments. Her reading of the " Nouvelle Heloise " 
took place with all the importance of an event in her 
young life. With it sentiment came to the front. 
Philosophy and reason retreated. Manon lost her- 
self in dreams of " the raptures of love, the beauty 
of filial affection, the peace of domestic life, and 
the joys of motherhood." 

Naturally enough, Manon's first sign of her 
appreciation of Rousseau was an attempt to find 
a Saint-Preux to whom she might play the part of 
Julie. She looked in vain for such a one among 
the host of tradesmen lovers whom her father 
favored. They were all of them stupid. They 
could talk of nothing more inspiring than the 
gossip of the Pont Neuf. Manon could not give 
forth the faintest spark for one of them. The 



124 MADAME ROLAND. 

idea of choosing a Saint-Preux from among them 
was quite preposterous. 

However, there chanced to be a lover for Manon, 
a possible Saint-Preux outside this tradesmen- 
throng. He wrote verses and he had theories, 
and he could talk of something other than the 
gossip of the Pont Neuf, so wearisome to Manon. 
He was a semi-philosopher, semi-sentimentalist. 
His name was La Blancherie. 

There is mention of La Blancherie early in 
Manon's letters, before her mother's death. The 
young man, it seems, had met Manon at one of 
those gatherings of helle esprits which she occa- 
sionally attended. He had devoted himself to her, 
had captured her young fancy, and obtained per- 
mission from her to call upon her. Manon had 
received his attentions with some pride and pleas- 
ure. She had not jested about him as about her 
other lovers. She had regarded him as a young 
sage, a future Rousseau possibly. She had become, 
indeed, quite enthusiastic on his account. Her 
hitherto frigid little heart had warmed, had glowed 
and burned for him. The fire that La Blancherie 
had kindled was not love, perhaps, and yet surely 
it was something more ardent than admiration. 
Of course, Manon had confided to Sophie this 
solemn event in her interior life. Without her 
mother's knowledge, she had added postscripts to 
the letters bound for Amiens. She had been very 
serious, very reverent in her treatment of this new, 



MADAME ROLAND. 125 

sweet, and inexpressibly mysterious sentiment. 
As for La Blancherie, he had not been slow. He 
had seen "papa," had proposed for Manon's hand, 
and had been rejected by monsieur, because of his 
lack of financial resource. Therewith, he had left 
Paris and had gone to Amiens, supposedly to build 
up the necessary fortune. 

Such was the standing of the La Blancherie affair 
at the time of Madame Phlipon's death. . Some 
months after this event, so sorrowful for Manon, 
La Blancherie returned to Paris. He called upon 
Manon and appeared to be much affected by her 
pale and sad appearance. Manon tremulously 
spoke to him of her grief. He sought to comfort 
her and showed her the proof sheets of his new 
book. Manon wrote to Sophie of the book, that 
it was her "whole soul," and of the author she said 
that she could not judge him because he was so 
much " like " herself. She had persuaded herself 
that she was in love, that La Blancherie was the 
Saint-Preux for whom she had been waiting. 

Monsieur Phlipon, however, proved recalcitrant. 
He did not find that La Blancherie had in any 
way bettered his financial condition. He disap- 
proved of the young man and requested that he 
abate his visits. This paternal mandate was the 
needed incentive to Manon's love. Distance, in 
her case, certainly lent enchantment. Separated 
from her Saint-Preux, her romantic young brain 
seethed and bubbled amazingly. She idealized the 



126 MADAME ROLAND. 

young man into a being of talent and integrity 
quite different from what he really was. As a 
matter of fact, La Blancherie was very ordinary, 
his verses and his theories were "twaddle," his 
philosophy and his sentiment were second-rate. 
It was only by means of a most superficial acquain- 
tance that he had succeeded with Manon. 

Manon awoke from her love's young dream 
when, one day, walking in the Luxembourg, she 
met her lover with a feather in his hat. This 
frivolous ornament, a mere trifle to be sure (but 
to a woman's mind trifles sometimes assume vast 
proportions), shocked and revolted Manon. Im- 
mediately the young man was a changed being in 
her eyes. " His features," she wrote to Sophie, 
" though the same, have no longer the same ex- 
pression and do not indicate the same qualities. 
Oh, how powerful is illusion I He is no more an 
idol of perfection, no longer the first of his species, 
— in short, no longer my beloved." 

This episode of the feather, together with some 
idle gossip which she heard to the effect that La 
Blancherie was commonly known as " the lover of 
the eleven thousand virgins," quite cured Manon 
of her temporary derangement. She granted the 
young man one last interview in which she took 
occasion to inform him that he was not the paragon 
she had once supposed him, but a very average 
mortal, with whom she could have no concern. 
La Blancherie, a bit chagrined and looking very 



MADAME ROLAND. 127 

foolish, took up his hat and withdrew. When the 
door closed behind him, it shut him out forever 
from the life of Mademoiselle Phlipon. Manon's 
first love affair was over. 

From love Manon turned to friendship with 
redoubled fervor. Sophie alone could not suffice 
her. Henriette, Sophie's older sister, of whom 
Manon had disapproved in her convent days, came 
to Paris on a visit. Her vivacity and wit charmed 
Manon. She was admitted as a third to the inti- 
macy. Thenceforth the letters to Amiens were 
addressed to both sisters. The truth was, Manon 
had grown a little away from Sophie and nearer to 
Henriette. Sophie still inhabited a world of mys- 
ticism and piety and even meditated taking the 
veil. Manon had departed from that world into a 
wider circle — the circle in which Henriette had 
always resided. Under such circumstances it was 
inevitable that the alliance should become a triple 
one. The correspondence had lost its unity. And 
so, too, had Manon s life. At this period Manon 
was living in a way that might justly be described as 
"scrappy, patchy, and unfulfilled." She was deep 
in domestic troubles. Her father was leading an 
irregular life. His fortune was fast vanishing. 
Ruin seemed imminent. " I shall have great need 
of philosophy to enable me to sustain the conflicts 
that are coming," wrote Manon to her Amiens 
friends. " I am like Ulysses clinging to the fig tree ; 
I wait for the ebb tide to restore me to my ship." 



128 MADAME ROLAND. 

When she wrote thus jManon was twenty-two 
years of age. Her sorrow at her mother's death, 
her little love affair, her household cares and 
worries had developed and matured her. She was 
a girl of very exceptional mind and character. It 
was not surprising that she should have attracted 
the attention of men of mark. Better than the 
society of young men she enjoyed that of the older 
men, distinguished by experience and culture, who 
came to see her. 

Her jNIemoirs and her letters have much to say 
of a certain Monsieur de Sainte-Lette. He was 
about sixty years of age, a man who had travelled 
much, w^ho had done government service m 
Louisiana, and who had recently come to Paris 
from Pondicherry. Manon and he became great 
chums. Of this friendship Manon wrote : " There 
is perfect freedom between us. We talk on all 
sorts of subjects. I question him, I listen, I re- 
flect, I object; when we do not wish to talk we 
keep silent without troubling ourselves, but that 
does not last long. Sometimes we read a fragment 
suggested by our conversation, something well 
known and classic, whose beauties we love to 
review. The last was a song of the poet Rousseau 
and some verses by Voltaire." 

Sainte-Lette had a widower friend. Monsieur de 
Sevelinges, a man of some fifty odd j^ears of age, 
who held a position in the finances of the province 
and cultivated letters as well. Through Sainte- 



MADAME ROLAND. 129 

Lette, Manon became acquainted with Sevelinges. 
With Sevelinges as with Samte-Lette she reasoned, 
philosophized, and rhapsodized. Moreover, she 
spoke to him of her domestic troubles. He con- 
doned with her and on his part confided to her his 
regrets on the score of his lonely widowerhood. 
Sentimental passages ensued between them. There 
was even talk of marriage. However, the affair 
came to nothing. Sevelinges went away and 
Manon gradually ceased to think of him, as she be- 
came much interested in another philosopher friend. 

This other philosopher friend was Monsieur 
Roland de la Platierre. He was a friend of the 
sisters Cannetand much revered by them. Indeed, 
between him and Henriette there had been at one 
time some sort of a sentimental attachment. Mon- 
sieur Roland was an inspector of commerce in 
Picardy and lived at Amiens. In his business 
capacity he went often to Paris. Naturally enough 
he had heard much of Manon from the Cannets 
and had become acquainted with her portrait as it 
hung in the Cannet home. 

One day he remarked to the Amiens girls, " I 
am about to set out for Paris. Why not give me 
the opportunity of knowing this dear friend of 
yours. Mademoiselle Phlipon? Will you not en- 
trust me with a letter to her ?" 

The letter was written and Roland was appointed 
its carrier. Of course as a messenger from the 
beloved Sophie he was well received. 



130 MADAME BOLAND. 

" An enlightened man of pure morals who can be 
reproached with nothing save his preference for the 
ancients over the moderns and his foible of being 
somewhat overfond of talking of himself," — it 
was thus Sophie's letter described the man who 
delivered it. Manon raised her eyes from the 
written words and contemplated her new visitor. 
She saw a rather austere looking gentleman of 
more than forty years of age. His face was 
long and thin, his hair certainly not overbundant, 
his features regular, his manners stiff, and his 
dress conspicuous in its simplicity. Clearly he 
was not at all a handsome man, but he had a subtle 
and very pleasing smile, an air of piquancy, and 
an appearance that was on the whole imposing and 
distinguished. All this Manon noted as she looked 
at him. Later, as she talked with him, she was 
impressed with his knowledge, his good sense, and 
his excellent taste. 

Such was Manon's first acquaintance with the 
man destined to play so important a part in her 
life. During his stay in Paris she did not see him 
very often. He was much occupied with business. 
But there were occasional " visits " which extended 
to a late hour in the evening. Manon and Roland 
found much to talk to each other about. He told 
her of his business and his travels. She asked 
him questions in regard to the Italian which she 
was studying. They discussed literature. They 
were a pair of sage philosophers together. 



MADAME ROLAND. 131 

However, there must have been, even at this early 
date in their acquaintance, some romance mixed 
with the philosophy ; for when the moment came for 
Roland to bid his fair young friend good-bye, he 
asked for something which we are not accustomed 
to associate w^ith Plato and the others of his school. 
Manon, it seems, complied with his request, and 
not without the accompanying blush. 

Sainte-Lette happened to be standing near. 
There appears to have been a truly French freedom 
about the whole transaction. 

" You are fortunate in departing," the older man 
remarked, dryly. " Make haste to return in order 
to obtain another." 

Eoland left Paris on a journey that took him to 
Switzerland, Italy, Sicily, and Malta. He studied 
the industries of these countries and took notes 
upon them. By previous arrangement, he sent his 
notes to Manon to preserve for him. Manon 
became much interested in his travels and investi- 
gation as related by himself. She came to admire 
more and more the man's clear, intelligent, and 
methodic mind. 

On the completion of his journey Roland 
returned home by way of Paris. Yet even at this 
period Manon did not see him very regularly. He 
was a cautious gentleman. He understood Manon 
and knew that she was not to be won by precipitation. 
He moved with the slowness and sureness of fate 
itself. Manon pretended to be much piqued by 



132 MADAME ROLAND. 

his wariness. She wrote to the Amiens friends 
that Monsieur Roland appeared to her " through too 
long a telescope," that for all she saw of him he 
might as well have remained in Italy. There is 
some artifice in this. Manon, who had always been 
so frank, was reticent on the subject of this mutual 
friend. The truth was Roland did not wish to have 
the Cannet sisters know that he saw Manon often. 
He feared gossip and then, too, he apprehended that 
Henriette, who had once liked him in something 
more than a moderate degree, might be jealous. 

The affair between Manon and Roland advanced 
secretly along Platonic lines. Roland, however, at 
length became ardent. He did not feel sure of 
Manon. He wished to meet her on a more 
subtanstial footing than the dream basis over which, 
for so long a while, they had been pleasantly drift- 
ing. He told her that he loved her and asked her 
to become his wife. 

Manon answered in pretty platitudes, but would 
give him no direct answer. She told him, in very 
impersonal fashion, that she was not a good enough 
match for him. She disclosed to him the facts of 
her ruined fortune and of her father's irregular 
life. Roland, however, persisted. At length it 
was agreed that he should write a letter to Mon- 
sieur Phlipon asking for Manon's hand. 

Roland returned to Amiens and wrote the letter 
from there. Monsieur Phlipon answered in very 
impertinent and bumptious fashion. He did not 



MADAME ROLAND. 133 

like Monsieur Roland. The man's air of conscious 
virtue and superiority angered him. He did not 
want him for a son-in-law and did not hesitate to 
tell Monsieur Eoland so. He showed a copy of 
his answer to Manon. 

Manon was very much mortified and indignant 
when she saw what her father had written. He and 
she had been growing farther and farther apart. He 
was proud of her, but he disliked the philosophy 
that made her refuse some rich husband of his own 
choosing. Moreover, he saw that siie considered 
herself better than him, and this annoyed him. As 
for Manon, she was not, perhaps, as tender and 
patient as she might have been. She doubtless 
showed too plainly her disapproval of his loose 
conduct. And the tone she took towards him may 
have been a little too censorious. At any rate there 
was constant friction between them. Manon felt 
that this must end, that the moment of crisis had 
come, that she must act. Her father's letter to 
Roland determined her. She took matters into her 
own hands, left her father for good, and retired to 
an apartment in the convent of the Congregation. 
There she lived economically, quietly, studiously. 

When Manon went to the convent, she wrote to 
Roland that all thought of an engagement between 
them must be banished. Henceforth they could be 
only friends. Perplexed, aggrieved, well nigh dis- 
tracted, Roland acquiesced. He wrote heartbroken 
letters to Manon, and she answered in the same 



134 MADAME BOLANB. 

mournful vein. They were both very miserable 
over their separation. 

The affair was at this distressing standstill when 
at length Roland arrived in Paris. He called upon 
Manon at the convent. He went to scold, but the 
sight of her beautiful, sad face, the tears that were 
in her eyes as she regarded him, quite vanquished 
him. He remained only to love. He took the 
dear, unkind, unreasonable girl in his arms and 
once more implored her to marry him. 

"Is it yes or no, Manon ? " he inquired. 

It was yes. Manon could no longer resist the 
call of this wise, learned, and upright man, the call 
of marriage, of domestic life, of love. Her feeling 
for Roland was a romantic friendship in which 
philosophy and sentiment blended. She believed 
she could be happy with him. With her clear 
vision she looked before her and saw new cares, 
new responsibilities, new experiences. She went 
forward to meet them, firmly, courageously, as at 
a later day she went to meet her last great crisis. 

Manon's girlhood is at an end. On the eve of 
her marriage it has become a thing apart, a picture, 
a memory. It is in retrospect only a humble first 
act. Yet what a remarkable first act ! The recol- 
lection of its purity, its vigor, its activity remains 
after the knowledge of other grander, more pre- 
tentious scenes is past. There is in it inspiration 
and the health and beneficence that are in all good 
things. 



11. 



MADAME EOLAND, THE HEROINE OF THE 
REVOLUTION. 

It was afternoon. The session of the Assembly 
was at an end. The meeting of the Jacobins had 
not yet opened. A band of patriots were gathered 
in a pleasant salon of the Hotel Britannique. They 
argued, they wavered, they compromised. They 
were carried this way and that with the ebb and 
flow of political debate. 

Viewed even as they were then, at an early period 
in the Revolution, before the light of subsequent 
events had irradiated them, they were an interesting 
group of men. He of the ruddy cheeks and honest 
countenance was Petion, soon to be chosen mayor 
of Paris. Near by was one who said very little, but 
who heard all, a neatly dressed, sallow faced man. 
This man was Robespierre. There, too, was Brissot, 
the republican journalist, distinguished by his 
gaiety, his naivete, his boyishness, his frank and 
winning smile. The austere gentleman, the Cato 
of the tlirong, was Roland. And there beside him, 
young, handsome, grave, the most lofty and daring 
spirit of them all was Buzot. There were others be- 
sides these foremost ones, Claviere, Louis Noailles, 
Volfius, and Garran. Together they discussed the 



136 MADAME BOLAND. 

affairs of the Assembly, criticised its dilatoriness, 
and suggested measures that should be taken to 
advance the interests of the people. 

In the same salon with them, near a window and 
before a little table, a woman was seated writing. 
She was the wife of one of the number, of Roland, 
the host of the salon. In her capacity of hostess, 
she rose to receive each man as he came and to ex- 
change some few pleasant amenities with him 
before he left. For the rest, she took no part in the 
conversation. Apparently her whole attention was 
given to her writing. Yet, at every expression of 
a high minded sentiment, her eyes flashed and her 
color deepened, and at an ill-timed jest or a foolish 
argument she bit her lips and her pen sputtered in 
protest. 

" Oh, these Frenchmen," she was thinking. 
" They do not know how to deliberate. A certain 
lightness leads them from one subject to another. 
Their attention is easily fatigued. A laugh is 
awakened by a word, and a jest overthrows logic. 
Why will they not see that it is impossible to do 
good in politics save by combined effort, that 
unless each one is willing to bend to an idea a 
little different from his own, there can be no 
united action and nothing will be accomplished ? " 

The voices of the men grew loud in disagree- 
ment. Madame's pen went sputtering on its way. 

Claviere, who happened to be standing nearest 
to madame, glanced down at her, remarking com- 



MADAME ROLAND. 137 

passionately, " How rapidly you write — and in 
this furor! Only a woman's head is capable of 
such a thing." 

Madame looked up, smiling. " What would you 
say," she asked, " if I should repeat all your argu- 
ments ? " 

The gentlemen were leaving. One by one they 
stopped beside madame's chair to exchange a few 
words with her before departing. At length there 
remained onlyBrissot, Robespierre, Petion, Buzot, 
and Roland. These latter gentlemen, left alone, 
turned to Madame Roland, anxious for her 
opinion. 

" Well, what do you think of to-day's business ? " 
they inquired. " Do we go backward like the 
crab or slowly forward like the turtle ? " This 
was said part in jest and in appreciation of the 
woman's swift, eager spirit. 

Madame Roland pushed back her papers and 
rose from her table. Impetuously, a bit scornfully, 
determinedly she faced the men. " You are noth- 
ing but children," she exclaimed. " Your enthu- 
siasm is a momentary blaze. A civil war is 
necessary before you will be worth anything.' Tis 
blood we want, since nothing else will whip you 
and make you go. War ! war ! We must beat to 
battle or retreat. There is no middle course." 

Something like the joy of battle thrilled in 
madame's voice and shone in her eyes. She was 
terrible in her cruelty. But in her cruelty, its 



138 MADAME ROLAND. 

cause, its very essence, was the divine spark. Her 
wrath was " the wrath of the gods," her indigna- 
tion the " righteous indignation " of the moralist. 
Her call for "blood " was in accordance with that 
'' divine right of insurrection " which she preached, 
a means towards that "complete regeneration" 
which she most rigorously demanded. 

To the patriots whom she addressed Madame 
Roland's words were now as always fresh incentive, 
renewed inspiration. She was in " the vanguard " 
of their movement. They looked to her as to "the 
watcher on the ramparts " urging them to the 
fight. We can imagine their listening attention. 
If there was one among them who held back and 
said nothing, that one, we may be sure, was Robes- 
pierre. Perhaps in his politic soul even so soon 
he had begun to cherish a contempt for Madame 
Roland's uncalculating daring and indifference to 
consequence. Already a dark thought, like the 
shadow of the guillotine, may have traversed his 
mind. If there was another whose eyes flashed 
with a fire like her own, who stood beside her on 
the ramparts in the forefront of the fray, that 
other, we may know, was Buzot. Perhaps, even 
at that early date, the fire of his glance may 
have contained the spark of love. Already similar 
hopes and dreams and aspirations may have been 
drawing him to her, uniting his soul to her soul 
with the inevitableness of fate. 

But though one may have hung back ominously 



MADAME ROLAND. 139 

and another have pressed forward too fervently, 
all were stirred, all were incited in one way or 
another by her words. Madame Roland, it is 
certain, had acquired at this period '' a veritable 
supremacy " over these men and over all the 
patriots of her acquaintance. And this is not sur- 
prising. All reasons, save that of her sex, made 
her their natural leader. She was the most de- 
termined, the most inspired of them all. She 
never wavered when they wavered, or stopped at 
practical considerations when they stopped. She 
was uncompromising, unswerving, unalterable in 
her purpose. She gave herself exclusively to the 
cause ; she would not go to the theatre or look at 
pictures or do anything for the mere gratification 
of her tastes. " Who is the traitor," she de- 
manded, " who has other interest to-day than that 
of the nation ? " Triumphant in her hopefulness, 
she pictured a future made glorious by the realiza- 
tion of an ideal government. With " an almost 
clairvoyant vision," she looked into the future and 
foretold what would be the needs, what the re- 
sponsibilities of this government. Her stand was 
the firmest, her loyalty the surest, her aspirations 
the highest, her sight the clearest. She embodied 
in their purest form the principles of the patriot 
cause. 

This woman to whom all eyes turned as to " the 
type and symbol of the Republic " was one with 
the young girl who had sighed for the time of the 



140 MADAME BOLANB. 

saints and the heroes, whose eyes had filled with 
tears in contemplation of the beauty and solemnity 
of the universe. In essence, the real essence, that 
is of the soul, Madame Roland was still Manon 
Phlipon, responsive, idealistic, incorruptible. 

Manon's life since her marriage, to the time when 
the beginnings of the Revolution were shaking 
France, had been quiet, industrious, intensely 
domestic. Manon had married Roland on Feb. 4, 
1784, when her twenty-sixth birthday was close at 
hand. She and her husband had lived first at 
Paris and then at Amiens. Since 1784, and until 
the Revolution of '89, they had been established in 
the district of Lyons, dividing their time between 
the city and the neighboring town of Villefranche 
and Roland's ancestral home, the close of La Pla- 
tiere, situated near the village of Thezee, in the 
midst of the beautiful Beaujolais woods and moun- 
tains. 

The young wife constituted herself her hus- 
band's assistant in his industrial and economic 
labors. She was his proofreader, his copyist, his 
editor. She devoted herself to him with irreproach- 
able tact and gentleness and submission. She made 
herself indispensable to him. 

In the second year of her marriage her child was 
born, a daughter, to whom was given the name 
Eudora. Madame Roland, true to the teachings 
of her revered Rousseau, did not, according to the 
fashion prevalent among mothers of the time, put 



MADAME ROLAND. 141 

her baby out to nurse, but herself took entire charge 
of the little one. Eudora, it must be confessed, 
was something of a trial to her mother. As she 
grew into a healthy, hearty child, it became mani- 
fest that she was more frolicsome than studious, 
that she loved her doll better than her Plutarch. 
Her mother in despair betook herself to Rousseau 
and sought to learn from Emile and Julie the way 
to imbue her daughter with the proper sentiment 
and enthusiasm. 

During the years before the Kevolution, Mad- 
ame Roland's happiest times were passed at the 
close of La Platiere. In a spirit of rapturous an- 
ticipation she had approached her home among the 
hills. It was to be her Clarens. Rousseau had 
painted for her in glowing colors that ideal coun- 
try existence, those delightful meditations, those 
wholesome, hearty duties. And the reality did not 
fall far short of the dream. Life at the close was 
made easy and pleasant for her by her activity, her 
industry, her firm hold on homely, every day con- 
cerns. Within doors she kept the accounts and 
directed the servants. Out of doors she superin- 
tended the toil of the vine-dresser, the gathering-in 
of the harvest, the affairs of the poultry yard. She 
appreciated, she loved all these details of domestic 
and rural simplicity. 

In addition to her duties about the house and on 
the farm, Madame Roland undertook the care of 
her neighbors, the peasants of Thezee. When oc- 



142 MADAME EOLAND. 

casion demanded she nursed them, she helped them, 
she comforted them. Their welfare was among her 
chief considerations. She endeared herself to the 
peasants, and one of her last thoughts was of them 
and of her pride and happiness in the consciousness 
of their love. 

Life at the close afforded ample scope for the af- 
fections. Friends came often and stayed long. A 
delightful hospitality was maintained. Then there 
was always the little Eudora who, wonderful to re- 
late, was improving under her mother's Rousseau- 
flavored doctrines. And there was always Roland. 
During these years Madame Roland had not abated 
her labors as her husband's assistant. She contin- 
ued to copy, to read proof, to polish and revise for 
him. She and Roland were very happy together. 
He was more in love with his beautiful, clever young 
wife than ever. And as for madame, she loved him 
as a daughter loves a father. She continued al- 
ways to revere in him the wisdom, integrity, and 
austerity which had first attracted her to him. She 
knew no higher, better companionship than this 
with him, and it satisfied her. 

On the whole, Madame Roland was well off. 
She might have gone on in this way busily, pleas- 
antly, quietly to the end. Had it not been for an 
unusual stress of circumstances, she might have 
remained content in her obscurity, without a 
thought of broader aims and larger possibilities. 
But elements of dissolution were at work. Clouds 



MADAME IIOLANB. 143 

were gathering which were to break in a fierce 
tempest over France. Tlie Revolution was at 
hand and in its tumultuous rush of thought and 
action Madame Roland was caught up and carried 
far away from her vines, her chickens, and her 
peasants, and her obscure fireside happiness. 

Madame Roland and her husband were among 
those who enthusiastically welcomed the Revolution 
of '89. Their responsive souls had felt the rage and 
sufferings of the people. They had burned to 
ameliorate the people's wrongs. At first all that 
they desired was reform. The country was to be 
rid of its ancient abuses. Those taxes that " so 
piteously ravaged town and province," those re- 
strictions that so ''crippled" industries and manu- 
factures were to be abolished. The old regime was 
to pass away, and in its place was to rise a new 
government founded upon justice and a liberal con- 
stitution. Hopefully they turned their eyes to the 
Assembly that met on May 4, at Versailles. In- 
dustriously, earnestl}^, they went to work upon 
the cahiers, memorials setting forth the people's 
grievances, that were to go from Lyons to the As- 
sembly at Versailles. 

During the days between May 4 and July 14, 
from their quiet home among the Beaujolais they 
watched the proceedings of the Assembly. What 
they viewed there did not satisfy them. They 
grew suspicious of the new administrative body. 
They criticised and condemned it. 



144 MADAME BOLANB. 

In the storming of the Bastile, on July 14, 
Madame Roland saw the rismg of the rightful and 
long repressed " sovereign." It was for her the 
dawning of a new and very beautiful ideal. She 
no longer asked for reform. It was complete regen- 
eration that she demanded. Henceforth she 
spurned all palliative measures. She put no faith 
in the promises of the king. For the half-way 
course of the constitutional party she had only 
contempt and loathing. It was of revolution that 
she talked, revolution and the foundation of a 
republic. She turned her eyes to Greece and 
Rome and America, to the liberty that had blessed 
these countries, to the words and actions of their 
heroes. She dreamed of establishing a free gov- 
ernment in France. 

Madame Roland's political views were lofty, but 
they were human and, as such, subject to error and 
excess. She shared the fault of her time in sus- 
pecting and condemning all who did not think as 
she thought. All who were not so swift, so 
impatient as herself, she stigmatized as intriguers 
and traitors to the cause. She was fierce, passion- 
ate, bitter in her denunciation. It is especially 
hard to forgive her strictures on the revered La 
Fayette. She herself afterwards softened these 
strictures. She came to regard the general's 
reactionary attitude as an early revolt against that 
"overweening popular ascendency" which she 
turned and faced when it was too late. 



MADAME BOLAND. 145 

Moreover, Madame Roland was not always 
practical. She was a moralist, a theorist, an ideal- 
ist. She thought deeply and broadly. She 
argued eloquently. But when it was a question of 
definite ends and aims, she sometimes fell into 
the error of " vagueness and insufficiency." Yet 
in spite of occasional lapses, her sense was, on 
the whole, sound, her judgments keen and 
lucid. 

Early in the Revolution the Rolands put them- 
selves in touch with certain sympathetic spirits. 
They became especially intimate with Brissot who 
was editing '' Le Patriote Francais." Roland and 
madame, both of them, contributed to his journal 
and corresponded with him. They also were in 
communication with Champagneux, who had 
started in Lyons " Le Courrier de Lyon," similar 
in character to Brissot's journal. They wrote 
often for this paper. Moreover, the Rolands were 
on very friendly terms with Bosc, a young scientist, 
whom they had known ever since the first year of 
their marriage, and with Lanthenas, a doctor, who 
had long been a frequent and welcome visitor in 
their home. Madame wrote patriotic letters to 
both of these men who were in Paris in the heart 
of affairs. She was forever inciting them to action. 
She also corresponded in very spirited vein with a 
young lawyer, Bancal des Issarts, whom Lanthenas 
had introduced to her and her husband. Thus by 
correspondence and by frequent contributions to 



146 MADAME ROLAND. 

the political journals of the day, Madame Roland 
did all in her power to urge on the patriot cause. 

At length the time came when she was able to 
take a more active part. The municipality of 
Lyons was sending deputies to Paris to claim from 
the Assembly the payment of the debt which the 
old regime had forced upon the city. Roland was 
one of the deputies chosen to go. He went, and 
madame went with him. 

During their stay in Paris, a period of a few 
months, from February, 1791, to September of the 
same year, the Rolands resided on the Rue Guene- 
gaud in the Hotel Britanique. There, in their 
pleasant salon, they received, as we have seen, the 
leaders of the patriot cause. 

The Assembly sat only a short distance away in 
the Manege of the Tuileries. Thither madame 
repaired and sat in judgment on the body. Its 
waverings exasperated and finally angered her. 
She found the leaders of '89, the '' impartials " as 
they were called, the most dangerous enemies of 
the Revolution. In April she left the Assembly in 
wrath, not to revisit it during her stay. 

She turned her attention to the patriot clubs. 
These she attended with her husband and sent 
letters to some of them. She would not sign her 
letters, however. She believed that under exist- 
ing customs women should work quietly, not con- 
spicuously; they should inspire and inflame, but 
take no public part. 



MADAME ROLAND. 147 

Such being her opinion, she governed her actions 
in accordance always. Even in her own salon at the 
gathering of patriots she remained, as we know, 
seated at her little table. Sometimes it was a 
book that occupied her, sometimes it was her 
needlework, bat oftenest it was her writing. To 
the casual observer she appeared uninterested, a 
person of no consequence in the debate. Yet by 
many of those assembled there, by all who knew 
her intimatety, her presence was never for a 
moment forgotten. They realized her keen inter- 
est, her constant attention, and took both into 
account. Unconsciously, involuntarily almost, 
they appealed to her. She was silently invoked, 
tacitly addressed. Truly she was in all of these 
meetings the controlling influence, the real power. 

Over these meetings of the patriots, as over the 
sittings of the Assembly, Madame Roland sat in 
judgment. She was full of enthusiasm for the 
high-mindedness, the courage, the eloquence of her 
friends, but she was not blind to their faults. She 
lamented their lightness, their vagaries of speech, 
their lack of unity, their impatience with one 
another. 

With her keen and virile intellect she compre- 
hended the weakness of the movement which she 
was urging on. She saw how very distant was the 
goal of her aspirations. She and her patriot friends 
she realized were in the case of that " forlorn hope 
which must needs fight and conquer for the army." 



148 MADAME nOLAND. 

But her determination never faltered. It was for 
" the happiness of future generations " that she 
pressed boldly on. With her clear, discerning 
vision she perceived the clouds ahead. " I know 
that good citizens such as I see every day regard 
the future with tranquil eyes," she said, " but I 
am more than ever convinced that they are deluded." 
However, it was for the sun beyond the clouds that 
she worked and waited. " I shall die when it may 
please heaven," she declared, " but my last breath 
will be an aspiration of joy and hope for coming 
generations." 

That which troubled Madame Roland more than 
the weakness of her friends, more even than what 
seemed to her the perfidy of the Assembly, was the 
indifferent attitude of the people. They were not 
bent on revolution. They were not dreaming of a 
republic. Since their storming of the Bastile, 
which had so rejoiced and inspired Madame 
Roland, they had subsided, so madame considered, 
into "lethargy." They had fallen back into "the 
sleep of the enslaved." The public conscience was 
dormant. To awaken this conscience, to arouse 
the people to a realization of their "sovereign" 
rights, she was ready to welcome any excesses. 
She exulted over the flight of the king on June 
22. She regarded it as a virtual abdication. 
The duty of the country now, she determined, was 
to declare Louis XVT. dethroned and so establish a 
republic. She lamented his capture. "But for 



MADAME ROLAND. 149 

this," she thought, "civil war would have been 
inevitable and the nation would have been forced 
into the grand school of public virtues." She and 
her friends desired the trial of the king. To bring 
this about they united with demagogues and agita- 
tors, the mob element of the streets. In conse- 
quence of this alliance came the events of the 
Champ-de-Mars on July 17. Madame Roland 
joined with those who called these events a " massa- 
cre." She was exasperated. She despaired of ever 
seeing her ideals realized. The public mind, she 
determined, was incapable of anything lofty 
and daring. 

Monsieur Roland's business was at an end. 
Madame was glad to leave Paris, its " dolts " and 
its " knaves," and retire with her husband to their 
retreat among the Beaujolais hills. At least she 
thought for a time that she was glad. In reality 
her interest in public events was so vigorous, her 
devotion to the cause so intense, that she stifled 
under the nullity of her provincial home. She 
knew that there were heights to be climbed and 
battles to be fought. Her eyes were lifted to 
those Iieights, her warrior blood coursed in her 
veins. She could not rest content cultivating her 
lettuce, sitting with her needle-work at her obscure 
fireside, while there was a chance that, by being in 
the centre of affairs, she might help in that great 
work that sooner or later must be accomplished or 
the patriot cause be lost forever. 



150 MADAME ROLAND. 

Could Madame Roland have foreseen her own 
prominent and tragic part in that great work, we may 
be sure she would not for one moment have halted. 
Her acquaintance with the philosophers and the 
noble minds of antiquity had taught her a certain 
contempt for all personal considerations, all selfish 
happiness. She was ready, more than that, she 
was eager to sacrifice all to the goal of humanity. 
Truly she was in spirit very like those large-souled 
Roman matrons, Cornelia and the rest, of whom 
she loved to read. She was compounded of heroic 
stuff, her level was a high one ; and this she 
yearned to prove. 

It was decided that the little Eudora needed to 
become acquainted with the sights of Paris, that 
Roland could perform his work, which was 
the encyclopedia, better in the capital, among 
savants and artists, than at '' the bottom of a 
desert," for so the home at the close had come to 
be regarded. Accordingly, in December the 
Rolands went up to Paris. 

When the Rolands arrived in Paris the new 
Assembly, called the legislative to distinguish it 
from its successor, the constituent, was in session. 
Among its members were a group of young and 
ardent enthusiasts known as the Girond, the name 
of the department from which many of them had 
come. Like Madame Roland, these young men 
from an early age had nourished their minds on 
Plutarch and Rousseau. They spoke in classic 



MADAME ROLAND, 151 

phrase, they thought high thoughts, dreamed 
beautiful dreams. They believed implicitly in 
their ideals and their own power to accomplish 
their ideals. They considered themselves charged 
with the regeneration of France, the dissemination 
of liberty, the foundation of a republic. They 
regarded themselves as the saviours, the " Provi- 
dence" of their country. 

Allied with the Girondists were the Rolands' 
old friends, Brissot and Petion, both high in 
power. Brissot was conspicuous in the Assembly, 
a deputy from Paris, and Petion was mayor of 
Paris. 

To the aid of Brissot, Petion, and the Girondists, 
the Rolands brought their own bright hopes and 
daring projects. Madame Roland felt her affinity 
to these Plutarchian heroes, these so many Solons 
and Brutuses and Phocions, as they loved to call 
themselves. Her husband was Cato and she was 
Cato's wife, and these others were their companion 
spirits w^ith whom they were to join in raising a 
fair Utopia. 

The beauty of all this republican rhapsodizing 
was its sincerity. To be sure, it was tinged, in 
Madame Roland's case at least, with a certain 
bourgeois jealousy and vanity. She shared the 
sentiments of the class from Avhich she came — the 
third estate. She resented the superiority of 
birth, the advantages of material splendor, the 
social slights that she had been made to endure 



152 MADAME BOLANB. . 

because of her own humble condition. She looked 
forward to a new order of things in which virtue 
and talent were to be the standards. And she had 
a presentiment that nowhere were these standards 
to be found in such perfection as in her own little 
circle, in the persons of herself, her husband, and 
their youthful, Plutarchian companions. Such 
self-complacency is perhaps amusing. We cannot 
wonder that some adverse critics have seen fit to 
satirize it. And yet it came of an honest and just 
enthusiasm. We may smile at Madame Roland 
and her friends, but we smile indulgently. It is 
impossible not to love that inspiring group of 
patriots whose tragic fate has irradiated them. 
We forget their short-comings in the thought of 
their triumphant constancy and courage. 

Brief pen portraits of the foremost of the Girond, 
done with Madame Roland's distinct and vivid 
touch, have come down to us. We are permitted 
to see these men in action, confidentially, in the 
privacy of the Roland's salon. There are the im- 
petuous Gaudet, the two deliberate Gensenne, and 
Vergniaud, the poet orator, whose downcast eyes 
that '* could so lighten under the magic power of 
speech" madame "distrusted," she knew not 
" wherefore." In vain she searched among them 
for one able and powerful enough to be their 
leader. Each was lacking in some essential point. 
Even when she urged Brissot to assume command, 
she did so doubtingly, believing him to be " exces- 



MADAME ROLAND. 153 

sively hopeful and of a pliant and even guileless 
nature." Her husband she knew to be too inflex- 
ible for all practical purposes. He with his thin 
white hair plastered stiffly down, his sombre dress, 
and his buckleless shoes contributed to that youth- 
ful group the dignity and austerity of age. 
Madame Roland, it was said, might have passed 
for his daughter, so fresh and brilliant was her 
complexion, so singularly youthful her air of 
blended candor and reserve. She it was who was 
called the " soul " of the Girond. She inspired, 
she inflamed, she encouraged with unceasing 
energy. Could she, it has been asked, had she 
been a man, have acted as the captain of the band, 
have led them on to victory? Some of her 
admirers like to think so. 

Arrived in Paris, the Rolands established them- 
selves in the Rue de la Harpe. There they lived 
quietly for a few months. In March, through the 
influence of Brissot and other Girondists who at 
that time were controlling the Assembly, Roland 
was appointed to the Council of the King as 
Minister of the Interior. 

The new office produced no change in the 
Rolands' mode of living. While residing officially 
in an " elegant building " of Calonne's arrange- 
ment, the Hotel of the Interior, they retained their 
apartment in the Rue de la Harpe. Madame 
Roland neither made nor received visits. She 
entertained only the members of the ministry and 



154 MADAME BOLAND. 

such deputies and political personages as Roland 
desired to see. Roland persisted in his sombre 
style of dress. The court elevated its eyebrows 
at the ribbon bows upon his shoes. He resembled 
a Quaker in Sunday costume, it declared. One 
who saw the family at this period described the 
minister's austere looks, madame's freshness, sim- 
plicity, and youthfuhiess of appearance, and the 
child who "capered round with hair rippling to 
her waist." " You would have said," declared the 
narrator, " that they were inhabitants of Pennsyl- 
vania transplanted to the salon of Monsieur de 
Calonne." 

It has truly been stated that Madame Roland 
" entered the ministry with her husband." She 
had made herself, as we know, indispensable to 
him in his literary work during the first year of 
their marriage. She had never resigned her office 
of assistant and adviser. Now she went over his 
mail with him every day, discussed with him the 
affairs of his office, and helped him to decide the 
course to be pursued. Many people, realizing her 
influence, went to her with their business before 
interviewing Roland. 

The questions which, at the time of Roland's 
ministry, were agitating the Assembly were the 
edicts against the non-conformist priests and the 
emigres. The king put his veto to these measures. 
Thus, so Madame Roland maintained, he gave 
proof of his insincerity. At length she persuaded 



MADAME ROLAND. 155 

Roland and Sevran, Minister of War, that Louis 
was not to be trnsted. During these days France 
was in a bad way. Religious troubles were flam- 
ing up everywhere. A contra-re volution led by 
the recalcitrant priests was feared. In April war 
against the Austrians was declared. Rumor had 
it that treachery was rife, that the king, the court 
party, and the officers of the army were plotting to 
receive the enemy, to massacre the patriots, and to 
restore the old regime. 

Two measures Madame Roland recommended 
as cures for all the evils with which the country 
was visited : in the first place, that there should be 
a proscription of all the non-conformist priests ; in 
the second place, that a camp of twenty thousand 
soldiers should be convoked to guard the city. In 
a spirit of patriotic exaltation she seated herself 
beside her table and wrote, under cover of her 
husband's name, a letter to the king, urging his 
consent to the two measures. 

Louis refused to give his sanction. Exasperated 
by the pressure put upon him by Roland and the 
other Girond ministers, he dismissed them. 

The Rolands left the Hotel of the Interior and 
retired to their little apartment in the Rue de la 
Harpe. This moment of their removal was one 
of the proudest in Madame Roland's life. Her 
letter was being read and applauded in the As- 
sembl3^ She believed that it would convince the 
country of Louis's treachery, that it would lead to 



156 MADAME BOLAND. 

a recall of the Girondist ministers, the deposition 
of the king, and the establishment of a republic. 
She thought that she had performed her mission of 
" usefulness and glory." 

Madame's mind, however, was swifter than that 
of the public. The populace, it is true, assembled, 
armed, and visited the Assembly and the palace of 
the king, crying : " Sanction the decrees. Restore 
the patriot ministers." But there was no mention 
of deposition or a republic. The events of June 20, 
to all appearances, were nothing more than an 
unusually tumultuous Mardi-gras. 

Reaction followed. The constitutionalists rallied 
for a desperate stand. The court plotted with the 
allies and the emigres across the border to strike a 
blow that should shatter this new and formidable 
regime. 

In the face of such opposition, the patriots re- 
doubled their efforts. From their seats in the 
Assembly the Girondist leaders made public decla- 
ration that the country was in danger. They 
called upon the departments everywhere and the 
sections of Paris to act. There was an immediate 
response. Troops began to collect from all over 
France. Old men and boys, even women and 
girls, answered the call. France offered its very life. 

At first the popular movement was directed only 
against the foreign foe. But, as the days went on, 
guided by the wills of its abettors, Robespierre 
in control of the Jacobin Club, Danton, and Marat, 



MADAME BOLAND. 15T 

it changed its course. The king's throne became 
its goal. It advanced with a swiftness and a fury 
that alarmed the more moderate minds. Many of 
the Girondists, among them Brissot, Vergniaud, 
Gaudet, and Gensenne, drew back and sought to 
calm the passionate forces they had roused. Madame 
Roland, however, pressed on undaunted. It was 
the court party, the aristocrats, whom she feared, 
not the people of France. To her the people were 
still a divine element, a means by which the salva- 
tion of the country was to be attained. With the 
aid of her husband and Barbaroux, a young 
patriot from the south, she urged on the insurrec- 
tion. 

On August 10 that which she had so fer- 
vently and so unceasingly desired happened. The 
people became the "sovereign." A great mob 
surged through the city and into the hall of the 
Assembly. In accordance with the will of the 
new " sovereign," the Assembly, composed only of 
its Girondist and Jacobin members, voted the 
suspension of the king, restored the patriot minis- 
ters to office, and summoned a national convention to 
decide on a future free government for France. 
Monarchy had fallen in a day. For Madame 
Roland it was a day of triumph. She believed 
that her republic was at hand. 

She was soon to be disillusioned, however. In 
a very little while she was to discover that the 
people were not that divinity she had imagined 



158 MADAME BOLANB. 

them, that France was not " fit " for the republic of 
which she had dreamed. 

For a time all went well. But it was not long 
before her husband, restored to the ministry, found 
himself opposed by an insurrectionary element 
among the patriots, a fierce, vindictive, blood- 
thirsty element. When he gave commands, they 
were disregarded. To be sure, he represented the 
law, it was conceded; but were not the people 
superior to the law, it was demanded. Were they 
not the "saviours" of their country, the "sover- 
eign " power of France ? When, in horror, he 
recoiled from the rule of terror, the general pro- 
scription, and the September massacres, he was 
branded as a traitor and accused of being in league 
with the court party, and of conspiring against 
the unity and indivisibility of the republic. 

The position of Roland and of Madame Roland, 
and of all the sincere Girondists, was difficult and 
sad. They had pressed on bravely, hopefully, fer- 
vently, only to find "a river of blood" flowing at 
their feet. In humanity, in conscience, they could 
not cross to the other side with Danton, Marat, 
Robespierre, and the others. They must remain 
where they were and take their stand, perilous 
and desperate though it was, against the mad 
onrush of anarchy. 

They cluug to their dream so long as it was 
possible, believing it too " beautiful " to abandon. 
But at length that had to go with the rest, the lost 
power, the lost hopes, and the lost friends. 



MADAME MOLAND, 159 

Madame Roland's awakening was terrible. 
When she had rhapsodized about the divine right 
of insurrection, she had done so unknowingly. All 
along her enthusiasm had been the enthusiasm of 
the inexperienced idealist. Now she was brought 
face to face with the facts, she saw the people 
armed with pikes, organized into brigades, volcanic 
and brutal. The reality sickened her. "You 
know my enthusiasm for the Revolution," she 
wrote. " Well, I am ashamed of it. It is stained 
by these wretches. It has become hideous. It is 
debasing to remain in office." 

She would not join hands with the " assassins," 
as she called the insurrectionary forces. When 
Danton made overtures to her, she held coldly 
aloof. Her rejection of an alliance with this 
leader of the people has been termed a " folly," 
and she has been severely criticised therefor. 
She explained it as the result of an uncontrollable 
aversion, a physical repugnance. Danton, with 
his passionate face and voice and gestures, harangu- 
ing a street mob, was an avenging spirit in 
every way so different from the ideal she had 
imagined that she turned from him and his 
measures in loathing. He cured her of her love 
of revolution. He made a conservative of 
her. 

It was at this period, when hopes, ambitions, 
dreams were falling from her and she was feeling 
bereft and desolate, that Madame Roland experi- 



160 MADAME JROLANB. 

enced the deepest and most passionate love of 
her life. Buzot, whom she had known in those 
early days of the Revolution, between whom and 
herself from the first there had existed an affin- 
ity, a "birth bond," one might almost say, of 
thought and sentiment and daring courage, this 
Buzot was in Paris. Thither he had come as 
deputy to the convention, the new legislative 
body that had been summoned to decide on the 
future government of France. 

Reflective, serious, earnest, Buzot satisfied 
Madame Roland's most solemn needs. Moreover*, 
his elegant appearance, his courtly manners, his 
deference, and his attentions charmed her. Then, 
too, he was young, several years younger than 
herself. He had not yet become contaminated by 
contact with the world. He was not too practical 
nor too experienced, nor cynical, nor pessimistic. 
He still retained the illusions, the disinterestedness, 
the purity, the confidence of youth. Madame 
Roland could give her noblest to him, sure of a 
response. 

A long correspondence had drawn Buzot and 
Madame Roland nearer and nearer together, had 
intensified the sympathy that existed between them. 
Thrown suddenly into constant intercourse with 
each other, at a moment of grave crisis, their 
common cause, their common danger, their close 
affinity, united them in a love as unpremeditated as 
it was inevitable. 




MADAME ROLAND AT THE GUILLOTINE. 
From a painting by Royer. 



MADAME nOLAND, 16 1 

One of Madame Roland's friends once said of her 
that she possessed the " coquetry of virtue." She 
was forever reminding one of her duty, her con- 
stancy, and her devotion. Thus she had provoked 
Bosc and Lanthenas and Bancal, all her admirers 
since her marriage, and had kept matters between 
herself and them safe and "interesting." 

Buzot was not the first man who, thus provoked, 
had loved Madame Roland. But he was the first 
man who had won Madame Roland's love. To the 
honor of Madame Roland it should be declared that 
she did not permit the love between Buzot and 
herself to shake her loyalty to Roland. When the 
Revolution was loosening all bonds, that of matri- 
mony with the rest, and proclaiming man's right 
to happiness superior to any law, Madame Roland 
preserved, unimpaired, her fidelity to her marriage 
vows and her belief in the sanctity of the 
home. 

However, with her '* sentimental need of frank- 
ness," she could not forbear forcing upon Roland a 
confession of her love. The old man. received the 
news stoically. But his heart was broken. The 
situation became tense and painful. Madame 
Roland thus described it : " My husband, exces- 
sively sensitive on account of his affection and his 
self respect, could not endure the idea of the least 
change in his empire ; he grew suspicious, his 
jealousy irritated me. He adored me, I sacrificed 
myself for him, and we were unhappy." 



162 MADAME BOLANB, 

Yet, in the midst of this so distressing state of 
affairs, the public cause was not neglected. It was 
attended to with unabated interest and fervor. 
Roland ran his Bureau of Public Opinion, scattering 
so far as he was able the vague teachings of the 
Girondist school. Madame Roland aided him, as 
previously, in all his literary labors and interviewed 
people for him. And Buzot, from his seat in the con- 
vention, defended the characters of Madame Roland 
and her husband and fought the "Mountain " bit- 
terly and fiercely. No one in all the convention was 
more sensitive, more idealist, more indifferent to 
public applause than he. He was uncompromising, 
passionate in his denunciation of the Reign of 
Terror. His attitude was Madame Roland's atti- 
tude. The tliree worked together unselfishly and 
nobly. They gave no sign of their own inward 
struggles. To all appearances they had no desires, 
no aims, other than the country's welfare. 

Theirs was the energy of despair. They knew 
that they were laboring for a lost cause. Daily 
the position of the Girondists became more unten- 
able. Ever since the September massacres, when 
they had taken a stand against the insurrectionary 
movement, libels had been posted against them, the 
public journals published all manner of scandals 
concerning them. In these journals Madame 
Roland figured conspicuously. She was repre- 
sented as having France " in leading strings," and 
was accused of being the real Minister of the 



MADAME nOLANB. 163 

Interior, of squandering the national funds, and 
pulling down Marat's posters. 

In December she was summoned before the bar 
of the Convention to answer to the charge of 
treason brought against her husband. Her appear- 
ance and her pertinent replies were loudly ap- 
plauded, and she was awarded the honors of the 
session. For Madame Roland, this was an oppor- 
tunity, a chance to display her powers. Heretofore 
she had been only an actor behind the scenes. Now 
she stepped upon the stage and spoke directly to 
her audience. One saw in her bearing a radiant 
enjoyment of this active part. 

The time was not far distant when she would 
take her place among the prominent actors ; the 
days of her imprisonment were close at hand. 
Dangers were increasing ; soon to insult and libel 
attacks upon her personal safety were added. The 
Hotel of the Interior was raided repeatedly by a 
threatening mob. "It seemed," wrote a friend who 
was upon the scene, " that every night would be 
the last of her life." Flight was counselled, but 
Madame Roland, desirous of setting an example of 
firmness to the world, remained at her post until 
her husband's resignation in January. 

Her fall and her husband's were simultaneous 
with that of their friends, the Girondists. On 
May 31 a deputation presented itself at the Rolands' 
apartment in the Rue de la Harpe with an order 
for the arrest of the ex-minister. Roland, however, 



164 MADAME ROLAND, 

succeeded in eluding the officials and making his 
escape. Madame hastened to the Convention, hop- 
ing by means of her beauty, her intelligence, and 
her eloquence to obtain a hearing and secure her 
husband's release and pardon. She found all en- 
trances barred. The Assembly was in an uproar 
which, she learned later, meant a demand for the 
arrest of the Girondist leaders, Brissot, Vergniaud, 
Gaudet, Gensenne, and those others known as the 
" twenty-two." Madame Roland had to retire with 
her purpose unfulfilled. 

In the early morning of the next day came her 
own arrest. She offered no resistance to her cap- 
tors. She was proud to be persecuted, she said, 
when talent and honor were being proscribed. She 
was glad, too, to be put in a position to decry pub- 
licly the tyranny of her enemies. To one who ex- 
pressed surprise at sight of her weeping household, 
remarking, " These people love you," she replied: 
" I never have any one about me who does not." 

With an air of quiet dignity and a firm, intrepid 
step, she proceeded to the Abbay^. The savage 
cries of " a la Guillotine " that met her on the 
street, the brutality of guards and jailers which she 
noted upon her arrival at the prison, the sound of 
the tocsin ringing all night, the foul smells, the 
oaths and obscenity by which she was surrounded, 
could not shake her profound calm. She was lifted 
by sentiment and enthusiasm above material con- 
siderations. 



MADAME BOLAND, 165 

From her captivity at the Abbaye Madame Roland 
was set free on June 25, only to be rearrested im- 
mediately and confined in the prison of Sainte Pela- 
gie. There she remained until her removal to the 
Conciergerie, two weeks before her death, November 
8. For one of less exalted spirit and less energetic 
mind, these long months of imprisonment must have 
passed without purpose and without resource. 
With Madame Roland it was otherwise. She drew 
inspiration from them. For her they were the 
moment of her trial. She had entered upon the 
stage of public virtues, she believed. She felt the 
eyes of all posterity upon her. The time had come, 
she thought, for her to range herself with the spirits 
of antiquity. She must act nobly, endure bravely, 
in order to be enrolled among those chosen ones. 
" With Socrates " she must " drink the hemlock ; " 
" with Agis " she must " bend her neck to the 
axe." 

These inward convictions were Madame Roland's 
one stimulus, her sole comfort. Of outward helps 
she had none. She was separated from her child. 
Her husband was in hiding. Buzot, whom she 
loved, had been proscribed by the " Mountain " on 
June 2, and was a fugitive. Her friends, the 
majority of them, were imprisoned, threatened with 
the penalt}^ of death. As to her own fate she was 
under no illusion. Clearly she saw before her the 
awful shadow of the guillotine. All her early 
hopes and dreams and happiness were " sunk in 



166 MADAME ROLAND. 

blood and mire." Her " beautiful Plutarchian re- 
public " had vanished, dispelled by " the horror and 
corruption of one city." Only from the inexhaust- 
ive springs of her own soul did she derive her he- 
roic strength and courage. 

Vievv^ed in her most lofty attitude, the pedestaled 
position which she had assumed, Madame Roland 
seems to us cold, remote, and unreal. It is, per- 
haps, pleasanter to view her in her more human as- 
pects. Her triumphant cheerfulness and industry, 
which did not fail her even at her prison door, fills 
us with admiration. She was lodged in a rude and 
stuffy little cell. So revolting were the people 
by whom slie was surrounded that she rarely left 
her " cage." From the street, beneath the grat- 
ing of her window, she could hear the hawkers of 
Pere Duchesne's journal shouting her name, coup- 
ling it with calumnies which the market people 
caught up, declaring against her loudly and rudely. 
She endeavored to shut all tliis from her conscious- 
ness. With flowers which the faithful Bosc sup- 
plied, and with books which her friends lent her, 
she transformed her cell into an abode so pleasant 
that her jailers called it " Flora's Pavilion." Here 
she led a busy life. In the morning she sketched 
and studied English, the essay of Shaftsbury on 
virtue and Thompson's poetry. After dinner her 
serious work began. 

This serious work was her writing. To vindicate 
her friends, her husband, and herself in the eyes of 



MADAME BOLAND. 167 

posterity, to secure in history the recognition that 
her own generation had denied, this was her pur- 
pose. Historical notes, private memoirs, last 
thoughts fell rapidly from her pen. All was done 
easily, gracefully, and with a real joy in the telling. 
Critics have seen fit to ridicule the spirit of self- 
adulation which characterizes these productions. 
But when one takes into consideration the author's 
aim and the stress under which she wrote, one finds 
this spirit less humorous than pathetic. We see 
the poor prisoner in her cell, misjudged and calum- 
niated, robbed of all she held most dear, her family, 
her friends, and the cause which she had so fondly 
and so ardently cherished, we behold her travers- 
ing alone the solemn Valley of the Shadow. Her 
consciousness of her own rectitude consoles her. 
We would be unkind, indeed, could we not forgive 
her this consolation. 

She wrote of her mother and her father, of fair 
Mendon, of the Convent of the Congregation, of 
Sophie, of her quiet, studious, happy youth. As 
she told her story, the prison receded and with it 
her many sorrows and the thought of her approach- 
ing death. The old days returned. She lived her 
youth again, loving it, idealizing it. 

She was interrupted, however. At different 
times news was brought her of some fresh atrocity 
of the Convention, of the arrest of one friend, of 
the condemnation and death of another; of the 
trial of the Girondists to which, she said, she had 



168 MADAME ROLAND. 

waited to be called, " as a soul in pain awaits its 
liberator," but to which she was not called; of the 
execution of the twenty-one; Buzot was being 
tracked from hiding-place to hiding-place, she 
was informed, his discovery was almost certain; 
Bosc, whom up to the middle of October she had 
seen regularly, was proscribed and obliged to fly; 
she could no longer receive direct news of her child 
and her husband. 

Her sadness and her despair became intense. In 
many places tears stained her manuscript. Her 
narrative stopped suddenly here and there '' as 
with a cry or sob." Her self-control, her pride, 
her courage were almost more than human, but 
there were times when her anguish was mightier 
than these. " Before you she collects her strength," 
said an attendant to her fellow captives, " but in 
her own cell she remains, sometimes for hours, 
leaning against her window weeping." " Alas ! " 
wrote Madame Roland in one of her last letters to 
Bosc, " I know now what it is, the malady that the 
English call heartbreak." 

As the hour of her death approached, no one 
could have had greater proof than Madame Roland 
that she was beloved. The friend of her girlhood, 
Henriette Cannet, the gay, the impulsive, the kind- 
hearted, since married, a widow and childless, 
visited her in her prison, offering to change gar- 
ments with her, to take her place and risk death 
for her. Madame Roland refused this proffer of 



MADAME ROLAND. 169 

help as she did all others that would endanger 
another. To Buzot and Roland, both of whom 
were eager to attempt her escape, she wrote entreat- 
ing them to make no imprudent efforts on her behalf. 
" It is by saving your country that you deliver me," 
she declared. She urged them, so long as they 
breathed and were free, to think only of their 
country, to live only for their country. " Brutus 
on the field of Philippi despaired too soon," she said. 
Dying before her lover and her husband, Madame 
Roland was spared the knowledge of their failures 
and tragic deaths. Of Buzot it is related that 
when news reached him of her death, he said 
nothing, but was for several days like one "who 
has lost his senses." He was a hopeless fugitive 
at the time. After days of wandering, privation, 
and despair, the end came to him, no one knows 
just how. His body, beside that of Petion, was 
found in a wheat field, half eaten by wolves. As 
for Roland, he received the word that his wife had 
been guillotined as his own death warrant. He 
made a will providing for Eudora, said good-bye to 
tlie friends who were sheltering him, and proceeded 
to a retired spot on the roadside beneath the shade 
of a tree. Tliere he seated himself and deliberately 
ran a cane sword into his breast. The next morn- 
ing he was discovered dead, with this note on his 
person, " I left my refuge as soon as I heard that 
my wife had been murdered. I desire to remain no 
longer in a world covered with crime." 



170 MADAME ROLAND. 

Madame Roland's death had more of glory in it 
than those of her lover and husband. On Novem- 
ber 1 she was confined in the Conciergerie, the 
prison above the door of wliich was written the warn- 
ing to abandon hope. The day before the Giron- 
dists had left it to go to their execution. The 
inmates of the prison were just recovering from 
the shock of that last horror. They looked with 
curiosity, mingled with pity, upon the illustrious 
woman who was entering, the friend of the men 
who had just departed, whose own fate they knew 
and knew that she herself knew was a foregone con- 
clusion. They could discover no sign of weakness in 
her bearing. Never had she been calmer, more 
assured than at this moment when she was warned 
that she must abandon hope. 

The glimpses that we have of her from the pens 
of her fellow-prisoners bring her before us very 
attractively. " From the time of her arrival," 
wrote one, "the apartment of Madame Roland 
became an asylum of peace in the bosom of this 
hell. If she descended into the court, her simple 
presence restored good order, and the abandoned 
women there, on whom no other power exerted an 
influence, were restrained by the fear of displeasing 
her. She gave alms to the most needy, and to all 
counsel, consolation, and hope." And another 
said, " Something more than is generally found in 
the look of woman beamed from her eyes, which 
were large, dark, and brilliant. She often spoke 



MADAME ROLAND. 171 

to me at the grating with the freedom and energy 
of a great man. We used to gather round her and 
listen in a kind of admiring wonder." 

On the day after her arrival she was questioned 
by the Tribunal. Two days later she was further 
examined. She went from the prison, composed. 
She returned deeply agitated, her eyes wet with 
tears. All that she could say, she discovered, was 
useless. She was the friend of the Girond, 
Therein was her great crime. 

On November 7 the witnesses against her were 
heard. The Girondists had frequented Madame 
Roland's house. That was the substance of the 
testimony. Nothing further could be proved 
by it. 

The night of that day Chauveau Lagarde, a 
courageous young I'awyer, who was ambitious to 
undertake Madame Roland's defence, called upon 
her. She listened to what lie had to say atten- 
tively, but without hope. When he had finished, 
she did not speak, but drew a ring from her finger 
and handed it to him. The young man understood 
the act to be one of farewell. " Madame," he said, 
much affected, " we shall meet to-morrow after the 
sentence." " To-morrow," she replied, " I shall 
not be alive. I value your services, but they 
might prove fatal to you. You would ruin your- 
self without saving me. Spare me the pain of 
putting the life of a good man in danger. Do not 
come to the court, for I shall disclaim you if you 



172 MADAME BOLANB. 

do, but accept tlie only token my gratitude can 
offer. To-moiTow I shall exist no more." 

The next day, November 8, was the trial. That 
morning, as she left her cell to await her summons 
to the bar, it was noted that she had dressed herself 
with the utmost care. She had never looked so 
radiant. She wore a gown of white muslin trimmed 
with blonde lace and fastened with a black velvet 
girdle. Her dark hair flowed loosely below her 
waist. Comte Bengnot joined her. "Her face," 
he wrote, " seemed to me more animated than 
usual, and there was a smile on the lips. With 
one hand she held up the train of her robe ; the 
other she abandoned to the prisoners Avho pressed 
forward to kiss it. Those who realized the fate 
that awaited her sobbed about her and commended 
her to God. Madame responded to all with affec- 
tionate kindness. She did not promise to return, 
she did not say she was going to her death, but her 
last Avords to them were touching counsels. . . . 
I delivered my message to her in the passage. She 
replied in a few words spoken in a firm voice. She 
had begun a sentence when two officers from the 
interior called her to the bar. At this summons, 
terrible for another, she stopped, pressed my hand, 
and said, ' Good-bye, sir, it is time.' Raising her 
eyes, she saw that I was trying to repress my tears. 
She seemed moved and added but two words, 
' Have courage.' " 

The tribunal awaited her and the charge of being 



MADAME ROLANB. 173 

an accomplice in a "horrible conspiracy against 
the unity and indivisibility of the republic, the 
liberty and surety of the French people." 

She came from her trial with the look as of one 
acquitted. But to the inquiring glances of her 
friends, she answered with a gesture that signified 
death. The cart in which she was to make her last 
journey stood ready in the court-yard. 

Many before her had taken that jolting journey 
from the Conciergerie to the Place de la Guillotine. 
No one had travelled it with " a more sublime in- 
difference to its terrors " than she. One who saw her 
as she passed described her as standing upright 
and calm in the tumbrel, her eyes shining, her color 
fresh and brilliant, with a smile on her lips, as she 
tried to cheer her companion, an old man overcome 
by the fear of approaching death. The mob fol- 
lowed and cursed her, but they could not reach the 
heights where her soul had soared. 

At the foot of the scaffold she paused, asking for 
pen and paper to write " the strange thoughts that 
were arising in her." Her request was refused. 
Sanson, the executioner, grasped her arm and urged 
her to mount. She drew back, begging that her 
companion, the old man, be permitted to go first 
and thereby escape the pain of seeing her die. 
Sanson objected. It was the rule, he said, that the 
woman must die first. She looked into his face, 
smiling. " Can you refuse a lady's last request ? " 
she asked. Sanson complied. 



174 MADAME BOLANB. 

At length her turn came. White robed and with 
jBLowing hair, the smile still lingering on her lips, 
and " the look as of a great man " shining in her 
eyes, she ascended the scaffold. As they were 
binding her to the plank, her gaze rested on the 
statue of liberty erected to celebrate the tenth of 
August. " O, liberie," she exclaimed, " comme on 
t' a jouee." Her number was called. Her life was 
told. 

Perhaps no scene in the whole drama of Madame 
Koland's life is more fitting than this closing one. 
The thoughts which she had been forbidden to 
express, we may be sure, were thoughts of elation, 
even of joy. She was dying the death of which 
she had dreamed — the death of the warrior, young, 
brave, and defiant, of one slain honorably in the 
fight. With her prophetic vision, she looked into 
the future, saw the end of the evil days, saw order 
and peace restored to her land, and saw her own 
name, as the name of a hero, inscribed in her 
country's story. And, in her heart, forever con- 
stant in its fervor, she thanked God that she had 
been permitted to make this sacrifice. 



MADAME LE BRUN, 



Born at Paris, April 16, 1755. 
Died at Paris, May 29, 1842. 



" The gentle painter of portraits who was everybody's friend." 
— Tallentyre. 

We all know Madame Le Brun. We have seen 
her with her palette and her canvass ; and again 
in the straw hat that suggests the famous painting 
by Rubens ; and yet again with her daughter in 
her arms and the light of sweet maternity shining 
in her eyes. She appears before us in a variety of 
poses, yet she is always the same — curly haired, 
simply dressed, and with that suggestion of a smile 
parting her lips and softly lighting her pretty, oval 
face. We are, of course, attracted to her. We 
are interested to learn her story. 

She herself has told her story in her memoirs. 
She has told it naively, vivaciously, and in a way 
that constantly reminds us of that smile which we 
behold in all her portraits of herself. 

Her life was not exciting or eventful. She was 
not one to go down to the depths. She lived, for 
the most part, peaceably, pleasantly, graciously, on 
the surface. She was an artist and a Bohemian, 
careless of money, regardless of the future, yet 
kind and generous and friendly to all. She was 

175 



176 MADAME LE BRUN. 

irresponsible, a little eccentric perhaps, yet every- 
body loved her. 

When Madame Le Brun was making the jour- 
ney to Naples, her travelling companion was a 
gentleman of unenthusiastic temperament. As 
they were crossing the Pontine marshes together, 
madame called his attention to a shepherd seated 
on the banks of the canal, his sheep browsing in a 
field carpeted with flowers, and beyond the sea and 
Cape Circee. " This would make a charming pict- 
ure," she said. ''The sheep are all dirty," the 
gentleman replied. Further on she expressed 
admiration for the clouds surrounding the line of 
the Appennines and lighted by the setting sun. 
" Those clouds," he said," only promise us rain for 
to-morrow." And later, when the city was in sight, 
and they were passing between hedges of wild rose 
and scented myrtle, she could not repress an excla- 
mation of delight. Her companion shrugged his 
shoulders. " I prefer the sunny slopes of Bordeaux 
that promise good wine," he observed. 

Madame Le Brun, we may be sure, was not sorry 
to say good-bye to this uncongenial gentleman. 
She called him her "extinguisher." Fortunately 
she did not encounter many " extinguishers " in her 
life. Everywhere she met with sympathy, appre- 
ciation, and success. 

Upon her entry into Naples, and always, the 
world was a picture for Madame Le Brun. And 
it is as a picture that her book of memoirs reflects 




MADAME LE BRUM. 
From the painting by herself. 



MADAME LE BBUN. 177 

the world. This book has no chronology or 
sequence ; it discloses no theories or systems. But 
it is full of light and color and anecdote and amus- 
ing comment. 

Reading the memoirs of Madame Le Brun, 

making with her the tour of the continent, we, too, 

behold the world with artist's eyes. At Venice we 

float down tlie Grand Canal in a gilded gondola, 

and see the Doge draw the ring from his finger 

and throw it into the waves, and we hear a thousand 

guns from the shore announcing this marriage of 

the Doge to the sea. At Naples we sit in Sir 

William Hamilton's casino and watch the small 

boys dive for pennies in the blue waters of the bay. 

At St. Petersburg we behold the breaking up of 

the ice on the Neva. We follow the progress of 

those daring spirits who cross the river, jumping 

from block to block of floating ice, and of that 

triumphant one who, having been the first to reach 

the further shore in a boat, presents the emperor 

with a silver cup, and receives it back filled with 

gold from the imperial hand. In the presence of 

scenes so picturesque and brilliant, dull things, such 

as dates and facts, which things, indeed, appear to 

have had no existence for Madame Le Brun, are 

quite forgotten. With her it is enough to drift 

along with eyes alert and a heart in tune with 

nature and humanity. 

It is thus she herself drifted into the world. 
Elizabeth Louise Vigee she was called. At first 



178 MADAME LE BRUN. 

she was remarkable only because of her talent. 
With her deep-set eyes and her pale, thin face she 
was not at all pretty. Her mother, who was beau- 
tiful and proud, preferred Elizabeth's younger 
brother, a handsome, precocious little fellow. But 
Elizabeth was her father's favorite. Monsieur 
Vigee, a kindly Bohemian sort of man, was himself 
an artist of moderate ability. He was delighted 
when one evening his little daughter, then seven 
years of age, brought him a picture of a man with 
a beard which she had drawn by lamplight. " Thou 
wilt be a painter, my child," he said, '' if ever there 
was one." 

Elizabeth drew always and everywhere, during 
study hours and play hours, on her copy books, on 
the wall, and on the sand. She was placed in a 
convent at the age of six, and remained there until 
she was eleven. When she was twelve years old 
her father died. The family was poor, and 
mademoiselle's talent was soon turned to account. 
The painters Doyen and Briard instructed and 
encouraged her. She painted portraits and land- 
scapes and sold them. The money that they 
brought in not only supported herself, but helped to 
pay her mother's housekeeping expenses and 
bought her brother's school-books for him. 

She worked earnestly and industriously. She 
haunted the Louvre and the Palace of the Luxem- 
bourg, and copied paintings by Rubens and Rem- 
brandt and Vandyke and several heads of young 



MADAMi: LE BRUN. 179 

girls by Greuze. She made the acquaintance of 
the painter Joseph Yernet. He gave her excellent 
advice. '-My child," he said, " do not follow any 
particular school. Nature is the best master. If 
you study it diligently you will never get into any 
mannerisms." 

Meanwhile, mademoiselle, who was absorbed in 
her w^ork and had no time to dream of beaux and 
parties, had nevertheless grown pretty. Even her 
beautiful mamma, who had always been so critical, 
was satisfied with the appearance of her daughter. 
Certain young men who came to her studio to have 
their portraits painted by her were something more 
than satisfied. They wanted to gaze at her with 
tender glances (las yeux tendres}. But she, the 
little tease, always painted them with " eyes 
averted," and at the least wandering of those eyes 
in her direction arrested them with a demure, " I 
am just at the eyes, monsieur." 

It was not lonp- before Elizabeth's beautiful 
mamma presented her with a step-father. She did 
not like her beau pere. She called him detestable. 
The money that her painting brought in he appro- 
priated. She, who was always so generous and free 
with her money, forgave this. But she could not 
forgive his wearing the clothes that had once 
belonged to her own dear papa. 

It was as much as anything to escape from this 
beau pere that Mademoiselle Yigee consented to 
marry Monsieur Le Brun. Monsieur Le Brun was 



180 MADAME LE BRUN. 

the owner of some valuable masterpieces of art. 
He lent them to Mademoiselle Vigee to copy. He 
became interested in mademoiselle's talent. There 
was a fortune in it he thought. He determined to 
marry it. 

Mademoiselle Yig^e was twenty years old when 
she became the wife of Monsieur Le Brun. That 
freshness, that delicacy, that sweetness which she 
put into her pictures was in her own young soul. 
She had lived all her life in her painting, her one 
passion. She had read and studied very little. 
She was as innocent as a child. On the day of her 
wedding, on her way to church, she kept asking 
herself, "Shall I say 'yes' or shall I say 'no'?" 
It was a toss-up whether or not she should marry 
Monsieur Le Brun, and just by chance the " yes " 
had it. 

She found she had exchanged old troubles for 
new ones. Her husband was as prodigal with the 
money she made as her heau pere had been. He 
dissipated it completely, and she was able to save 
only a few francs for herself. 

For a while, to increase her income, she took 
pupils. One morning she entered her studio to 
find that her pupils had constructed a swing there 
and were having a jolly time with it. She deliv- 
ered them a little lecture on their levity. But the 
swing proved too enticing for their mistress, who 
was as young and blithe and girlish as any of her 
pupils. She suddenly broke off her lecture, 



MADAME LE BRUN. 181 

laughed, and tried the swing herself. This epi- 
sode decided her that she was too lively to be a 
teacher. She dismissed her class, and told them 
not to come again. 

In truth she had no time for teaching. She had 
too many portraits on her hands. She could not 
execute all her orders. Court ladies, noblemen, 
men of mark, Calonne, minister of Finance, the 
queen herself, none were too great to sit before 
this charming girl artist with the clever brush. 
They all praised her work and courted her and 
loved her. 

She made many friends, and was being asked out 
constantly. At first, having a strong liking for 
good company and merriment, she accepted all her 
invitations. One day, however, Avhen she was 
dressed to go out and waiting for her carriage, she 
went to her studio for a moment, just to look at one 
of her portraits she said. Before she knew what 
she was doing, she was sitting down opposite her 
easel and working busily. When she came to get 
up she found she had been sitting on her palette. 
The condition of her gown, all smeared with paint, 
convinced her that she could not combine work and 
frivolity. She determined thereafter to devote all 
of the precious daylight to her art, and to make 
only evening engagements. 

She was a careless, irresponsible young woman, 
this charming artist. Her friends sometimes 
called her a "tomboy." In her blouse and with 



182 MADAME LE BBUN. 

her round curly head she looked, when at work, 
very like a mischievous little boy. She made no 
preparations for the reception of her daughter in 
the world. On the day that the child was born 
she spent all her time before her easel painting her 
"Venus tying the wings of Cupid." She was so 
lost in her art that she had no other thought, until 
Madame Verdun, an old friend, came and reminded 
her. 

It was different when she had her little daugh- 
ter in her arms. Then she experienced a happiness 
greater even than that which her art had given her. 
She could now paint the better for her love she said. 

It was in 1779, shortly after the birth of her 
daughter, that Madame Le Brun painted her first 
portrait of the queen. After that she painted 
numerous portraits of Her Majesty. At first 
Madame Le Brun felt shy in the presence of the 
queen. One day, in embarrassment, she dropped her 
brushes. Marie Antoinette herself stooped and 
picked them up, and with a kind, encouraging smile 
put the modest little artist at her ease. After that 
they were very good friends, and sang duets to- 
gether during the sittings. To herself, however, 
Madame Le Brun was forced to confess that the 
queen did not always sing " in tune." 

Madame also painted the portrait of monsieur, 
brother of the king, afterwards Louis XVIII. 
He, too, sang in her presence, songs that seemed to 
her decidedly " rubbish." His voice was still less 



MADAME LE BUUN. 183 

in tune than the queen's, madame decided. " How 
do you think I sing, Madame Le Brun? " he inquired. 
" Like a prince," she replied. Shy and unconven- 
tional though she was, she was still a little of a 
diplomat. 

While she was painting these portraits of the 
royal family, Madame Le Brun made the acquaint- 
ance of the king. He talked with her, and at his 
praise she, who was always so na'ive and charming, 
blushed with pleasure. " I do not understand much 
about painting," he said, " but you have made me 
love it." 

This patronage of " the elite " helped to establish 
Madame Le Brun's success. She was already rec- 
ognized as a celebrity. She was applauded at the 
theatre and at the Academic Francaise. She was 
made a member of the Royal Academy of Painting. 

All this time she lived very modestly in the Rue 
de Clery. Most of the house was occupied by 
Monsieur Le Brun's fine collection of pictures. 
Only a very small suite of rooms was reserved for 
the mistress. But here she resided contently, and 
worked busily and received her friends. Ladies 
and gentlemen of the court and men of mark in lit- 
erature and art attended her receptions. She said 
that they came to see each other, but they them- 
selves knew, if she did not, that they came to see 
her. She was delightfully natural and unceremoni- 
ous with her guests. When there were not chairs 
enough to go round some sat on the floor. Occa- 



184 MADAME LE BBUN. 

sionally the fattest of them, the Marshal de Noailles, 
had difficulty in getting up again. Then every one 
laughed. Madame entertained her company with 
music and impromptu theatricals, and once she gave 
them a Greek supper. She dressed them all in 
antique costumes borrowed from her studio. They 
ate to the accompaniment of a chorus of Gliick's 
and the music of the lyre, and were served by 
madame's daughter and another little girl, two 
pretty children, each bearing an ancient vase. The 
whole affair was very novel and picturesque. 
Madame's artistic touch was evident in all she did, 
the social as well as the professional. 

It was at this time, in the midst of Greek suppers, 
applause, theatres, operas, and infinite portrait 
painting, that Madame Le Brun went to Louve- 
ciennes. There could not have been brought to- 
gether two more contrasting women than madame 
the artist and madame the courtesan, — the one of 
unaffected prettiness and artless grace, knowing 
little of the world but its art, innocent and sweet 
and fiowerlike, a girl still; the other a notorious 
beauty, well versed in all the wickedness of the 
world, coquettish and full of wiles, in spite of her 
forty-five years, her wrinkles, and her approaching 
stoutness. 

Madame Le Brun painted Madame du Barry in 
various poses, and she walked with her in her 
beautiful pavilion and sat with her in her beautiful 
salon before the fire and listened to her talk of 




MADAME LE BRUN AND HER DAUGHTER. 
From the painting by herself. 



MADAME LE BRUIT. 185 

Louis XV. and his court. It was an age Avhen the 
innocent mingled freely with the guilty. This 
intercourse, however, did not harm Madame Le 
Brun. She worked industriously, and smiled to 
herself in an amused, satiric sort of way at du 
Barry's confidences. And when she left Louve- 
ciennes, she carried with her a good and blithe and 
bonny heart unchanged. 

Madame's visit to Louveciennes was paid on the 
eve of the Revolution. When that horror dawned, 
and she saw a landscape bereft of all beauty, hid- 
eous and stained with blood, her artist's soul was 
shaken. She shut her eyes and ran away. Of 
course it was not brave of her to do this, but then 
Madame Le Brun was never noticeably brave. She 
was not a warrior or a hero or anything noble and 
imposing. She was just an artist and a very 
womanly woman. Therefore her rapid exit was 
quite in character. 

She did not stop running or open her eyes, so to 
speak, until she was in Italy. There the sky, the 
sunshine, the mountains, and the treasures of art 
which she visited restored beauty to her sight and 
brought comfort to her soul. Later the shores of 
the blue Danube and the midnight twilight of the 
Neva attracted her. We find her at Sienna seated 
in the doorway of an inn, contemplating a view of 
garden and canal, listening to a concert of birds 
and water-fall and rustling trees, forgetting, mean- 
while, her supper, until the servant of the inn 



186 MADAME LE BEUN. 

comes to remind her of it. And at Bologna we be- 
hold her traversing the galleries and commenting 
on the pictures, until the guide stands mute before 
her and turns to inquire of the bystanders, " Who 
is this lady? I have led many great princesses 
through this gallery, but never any one so well in- 
formed as she." And again we see her taking 
solitary walks in the environs of Rome, admiring 
the grandeur of the Appennines and the rainbow 
colors in the sky. Often she has with her her 
daughter, whose childish prattle delights her. 
When the trees are still, the little voice whispers, 
"Look, mother, they seem to ask us to be silent." 
And when the wind agitates them, the girl clings, 
trembling, to the mother's skirts. "They are 
alive," she exclaims. " I tell thee they are alive." 
Finally we follow Madame Le Brun to England. 
There the dulness of English country life falls like 
a chill on her gay French spirits. She fidgets in 
the drawing-room that is full of ladies all embroid- 
ering in silence and of gentlemen all reading in 
silence. She proposes a moonlight walk, to which 
objection is straightway raised. She investigates 
the library and the picture-gallery. An exclama- 
tion of delight, which unconsciously escapes her, 
draws upon her looks of reproving surprise. She 
sighs. This atmosphere of studious calm is not 
her natural element. 

Madame Le Brun was kept busy during her long 
sojourn. She painted many portraits. And she 



MADAME LE BRUN. 187 

had need of all this portrait painting. She had 
come away with only a few francs, having left all 
her money behind her in France for the mainte- 
nance of her extravagant husband. Unpractical 
and childishly unmercenary, she took little thought 
for her material welfare. It did not trouble her 
that she was without fortune so long as she reserved 
always her talent that could amass one. 

She did care for comfort, however. Disagreeable 
noises and smells distressed her very much. Yet, 
wherever she travelled, an annoying fate was for- 
ever thrusting them in her Avay. Now a dancing 
master instructed his classes over her head ; or a 
band practised its music there ; or the town pump 
was just outside her window, and began its work at a 
provokingly early hour. Her neighbors had a habit 
of cooking unsavory dishes. Sleep left her, and 
her nose was offended repeatedly . The climax was 
reached in London in a house in Portman square. 
There she was waked at daybreak by piercing cries, 
which, upon rising and popping her head out the 
window, she traced to an enormous bird of East 
Indian character caged in a window near by. That 
same day she found in her cellar the graves of two 
slaves. " What with corpses and birds," she pro- 
tested, " it was really too much. I left the house 
in Portman square." 

Madame Le Brun travelled from court to court, 
from academy to academy, from Paris to Rome, and 
Rome to St. Petersburg. Meanwhile the Revolu- 



188 MADAME LE BBUN. 

tion advanced. She would not read the news- 
papers ; she would not let any one talk to her of 
her unhappy land. Yet she thought often of the 
queen who had been kind to her and the king 
who had praised her art, both of whom she loved 
and lamented. Through all their vicissitudes, her 
loyalty to the Bourbons never faltered. To the 
day of her death she remained faithful to the old 
regime and the ancient nobility. 

She settled in St. Petersburg, having with her 
always her daughter and her art, a twofold happi- 
ness. She was to lose a half of that happiness. 
Her daughter, grown into a very pretty young 
woman, much petted, much indulged, took a fancy 
to a certain Monsieur Nigris, a man without talent, 
fortune, or family, whose soft ways and melan- 
choly glances were his only recommendation. 
Mademoiselle cried for him, as in her childhood she 
had cried for some pretty toy, and Madame Le 
Brun, who could deny her nothing, consented to 
the marriage of mademoiselle with this gentleman 
of her choice. It was madame's good-bye to her 
daughter. After the wedding she seldom saw her 
little girl, and when she did see her, the child's 
taste for bad company distressed the mother's heart. 
An exchange of visits brought more pain than joy. 
Later, when her daughter died, Madame Le Brun's 
grief was very great. At sight of the dear, lovely, 
altered face she fainted. All the naughtinesses of 
the poor little thing were blotted out of her mem- 



MADAME LE BBUN. 189 

ory, she said, and she saw her as in the days of her 
childhood. 

Her daughter married, her canvas crowded with 
all the sovereigns of Europe, and all the heads 
crowned by genius, and the Revolution at an end, 
Madame Le Brun returned to Paris. She arrived 
during the consulate. She met with a warm wel- 
come. Her husband had decorated the house hand- 
somely to receive her. The trouble had been his. 
Therefore she was pleased and grateful. That the 
cost would certainly be hers did not annoy her 
greatly. At her first appearance in public, at a 
concert, the audience turned and applauded her. 
She was much touched, and answered with tears. 
Her old friends, those who remained, called upon 
her. Greuze and Madame Bonaparte were among 
her visitors. It was pleasant to be again in France, 
which, though changed, was still France, social, 
polite, and light-hearted as of old. She was at 
home. 

Madame Le Brun lived on, painting portraits, 
entertaining and visiting her friends, and finding 
in her niece, Eugenie Le Brun, a second daughter. 
To the end it was the beautiful she sought, the 
beautiful she found. And it is a bit of the beauti- 
ful that she has contributed to the world. 



MADAME DE STAEL. 



Born at Paris, April 22, 1766. 
Died at Paris, July 24, 1817. 



"A woman great and magnanimous eyen in the inmost 
reaches of her soul." — Schlegel. 

'' I WISH that I could see you asleep," one of 
Madame de Stael's friends once said to her. " I 
should like to feel sure that you sometimes close 
your eyes and stop thinking." It was impossible 
to imagine her any way but wide-awake, over- 
flowing with thought and energy and life. 

Even to-day it is difficult to realize that those 
dark, " magnificent " eyes have closed forever, that 
the great de Stael is sleeping the eternal sleep. 
We read of her and forget realities, as we fall 
under the spell of her magnetic personality. She 
seems still to be holding court at Coppet, talking 
to an enchanted audience, wielding her sceptre, the 
leafy bough that a servant placed every day 
beside her plate. We listen and applaud and 
render homage to the queen of conversation. 

A rival once declared of Madame de Stael that 
she was nothing more than a " talking machine." 
It was a clever phrase, but it was undeserved. No 
one was ever less a " machine " than Madame de 

190 




MADAME DE STAEL. 
From the painting by Mile. Godefroy. 



MADAME DE STAEL. 191 

Stael, who was eminently sensitive, generous, and 
fervid among women. Her mind was great, but 
her heart was greater, and her genius sprang 
equally from both. 

Madame de Stael's genius evinced itself at an 
early age. She was an erratic, precocious, unduly 
thoughtful little maiden. Never pretty even in 
childhood, but with engaging ways and a remark- 
able originality and maturity of mind, she 
attracted the attention of her parents' friends. 
Seated on a low hassock at Madame Necker's 
feet, she may be truly said to have received with 
her mamma. Marmontel, Raynal, Grimm, the 
gravely ironical Abbe Morellet, all the famous per- 
sonages who frequented the Necker salon, bent to 
speak to the strange, old-young child. A portion of 
the homage they had awarded unreservedly to the 
mother they now bestowed upon the daughter. 
They delighted to draw out the little Germaine, 
for so she was called, to see the light of a wonder- 
ful intelligence break in her eyes and to listen to 
her quick, pertinent, and wise replies. 

For the mother who sat above her, like a queen 
upon her throne, receiving the compliments of her 
distinguished guests, the daughter entertained a 
profound awe. In that beautiful, pale, severely 
gracious presence she showed herself submissive 
and restrained. One seeing her only thus would 
never have suspected the ardent, impetuous, pas- 
sionate nature that was really hers. 



192 MADAME I)E STAEL. 

Madame Necker, who was the daughter of a 
Swiss parson, and who had inherited the paternal 
chastity and piety, was an eminently virtuous lady. 
Moreover, before her marriage she had been a 
school-mistress. Therefore the most rigorous of 
moral precepts and a host of pedagogic theories 
were brought to bear upon her little daughter. 
Under her mother's tutelage, Germaine read and 
prayed, studied and dissertated and convei'sed. 
The result was that at the age of eleven, with her 
amazing powers of intellect, she had developed 
into a very erudite and accomplished, but a most 
unchildlike, individual. 

Meanwhile papa was in the background. He 
was a very busy, very important man, the Minister 
of Finance of France. He had very little time to 
devote to his young daughter. He was more 
indulgent than mamma, however. During those 
infrequent moments when father and daughter 
were together, Germaine did not stand in awe of 
him. She dared to frisk before him, to play the 
child, to show him how very lively and amusing 
she could be. Necker seldom reprimanded her. 
Instead he laughed at her, and petted and caressed 
her. 

Germaine, with her alert perception, was 
quick to note the difference between her father's 
and her mother's attitudes towards herself. She 
was as quick to appreciate the meaning of this 
difference. One day, when she had offended and 



MADAME BE STAEL. 198 

had been sternly reproved by her mamma therefor, 
she could not repress her tears. Some one of the 
many frequenters of the Necker salon drew near 
and sought to comfort her. "Never mind," he 
whispered consolingly, "one kiss from your papa 
will make it all right again." Germaine regarded 
her friend gravely through her tears and, with a 
world of wisdom in her look, she answered, " Ah, 
yes, monsieur, papa thinks of my present happiness, 
mamma of my future." 

The contemplation of that goal of future happi- 
ness to which Madame Necker so persistently 
pointed must have wearied somewhat Germaine's 
mischief-loving spirit. Though she was for the 
most part a very reverential and obedient daughter, 
there were occasional faint flashes of self assertion, 
brief glimpses of a gaiety, a frankness, a naivete 
as irrepressible as her life. Now it happened that 
a company of play actors, paper kings and queens, 
drew her attention from her studies. Mamma 
frowned. The kings and queens were removed 
from mamma's scrutiny, and the play continued to 
the end. Again it happened that a guest passing 
through the Necker garden on his way to the 
house, felt a light, stinging blow on liis hand. 
Turning to resent the assault, he beheld the 
assaulter, the little daughter of the house, peering 
at him roguishly from behind a tree. "Mamma 
wishes me to learn to use my left hand," she 
explained. "You see I am trying to do so." 



194 31 AD A ME BE ST A EL. 

And again, most significant of all, it happened 
that once at table in the temporary absence of her 
mother, Germaine threw a napkin across the table 
at her papa and then, flying round to his side, 
smothered his reproaches with her kisses. More 
than that, she drew the dignified Necker into a 
dance with her, a dance which ended abruptly 
at sound of madame's returning footsteps. When 
that august lady entered, father and daughter 
had resumed their places, and nothing could 
have been more decorous than their behavior. 

In these instances Germaine revealed herself. 
In spite of all the pedantry with which her youth 
was crammed, she was still at heart natural, 
rudely yet beautifully natural. However, these 
instances were exceptional. Most of the time 
she showed her training. She was a product of 
the salon. The tinsel of society was upon her 
and the little vanities and artificialities of the 
world were manifest in all her conduct. 

With her prodigious learning and remarkable 
savoir faire, she quite amazed little Mademoiselle 
Hiiber, her cousin, a child of her own age, who 
came to live with her and to be her companion. 
Germaine, unused to children, fell instantly in 
love with the pretty, dainty, aerial little made- 
moiselle. We can imagine the eloquence of the 
glances, the ardor of the embraces, with which 
she greeted her new found friend and vowed 
'' eternally to cherish " her. Impetuously she 



MADAME BE STAEL. 195 

began plying her with questions, not after the 
manner of children, but in very conversational 
and grown-up fashion. What were her favorite 
studies? Did she know any foreign languages? 
Had she ever been to the theatre? And when 
to the latter question her cousin answered that 
she had, Germaine, to use her own expression, 
was ''transported." They would go often to- 
gether, she declared, and afterwards would write 
down all those portions of the play which had 
interested them most. Oh, they would have 
a royal time. 

In the evening of that first day of their ac- 
quaintance, Mademoiselle Hiiber went with Ger- 
maine into the salon. She was herself a bright, 
observant child. She 'noted with admiring awe 
Germaine's ease and grace with the distinguished 
oTiests. She saw that it was the cleverest men 
who talked with Germaine. " They asked what she 
was reading," Mademoiselle Hiiber afterwards re- 
lated, "recommended new books to her, and 
talked to her of what she knew, and of what she 
had yet to learn." 

Thus even so soon, at this period of Mademoiselle 
Hiiber's advent, Germaine Necker was giving 
proof of her extraordinary powers. Intimations 
of her future greatness showed in her conver- 
sation and in the animation of her "great black 
eyes." It also expressed itself in an intense 
sensibility. This sensibility was such that praise 



196 MADAME BE STAEL. 

of her parents brought tears to her eyes. The 
presence of famous personages, heroes and heroines 
of her young fancy, set her heart to palpitating. 
Like Manon Phlipon, she was a disciple of 
Rousseau, passionate in her enthusiasm for talent 
and virtue, and in her compassion for all suffer- 
ing humanity. She liked to read of the Werthers, 
the Julies and the Clarisse Harlowes of literature. 
She cared only for that which made her weep. 

The truth was she was paying the penalty of 
her prematurely developed mind. The excessive 
training to which she had been subjected by her 
mother was beginning to tell on her health. 
Tronchin was called in. He prescribed absolute 
rest from study, fresh air, and exercise. Thus 
cruelly did he shatter Madame decker's ambitions 
and projects ; for, such was the authority of the 
celebrated physician, that she did not venture 
to raise an objection. Straightway and with- 
out cavil, Germaine was transported to Saint 
Ouen. 

At Saint Ouen, the beautiful country seat of the 
Neckers, wandering in its shady avenues, reclining 
in its peaceful groves, and acting with her beloved 
cousin, Madamoiselle Hiiber, improvised tragedies 
upon the lawns, with nothing to do but enjoy her- 
self, Germaine regained her health and innate 
gaiety of spirit. Those instances of laughing, frolick- 
ing nature which had always been so rare with 
her became more frequent. She ceased to be an 



MADAME BE STAEL. 197 

infant phenomenon and was instead a child. 
Madame Necker found her very commonplace, and 
turned coldly from her. But her changed condi- 
tion delighted her papa. He sought her company 
and in her sallies of wit and playful humors found 
recreation. 

Estranged from her mother and drawn nearer 
and nearer to her father, Germaine reserved her 
awe for the one and gave to the other a profound 
and adoring love. It is pleasant to contemplate 
in a brilliant life, such as that of Germaine Necker 
was destined to be, a love so pure and abiding as 
hers for her father. One sees in it a counterpart 
of Madame de Sevigne's for her daughter. Like 
the love of the witty marquise, it amounted to a 
passion. It filled her life. She listened to Necker's 
tales of his boyhood, pictured him young, ardent, 
and ambitious, and lamented that fate had not 
made them contemporaries and united her destiny 
eternally with his. 

When Germaine was fifteen years of age, Necker 
published his " Compte Rendu " and consequently 
fell from power. He retired to Saint Ouen and 
there a host of sympathetic and admiring friends 
visited him and his family. From now on until 
the time of her marriage, a period of five years, 
Germaine enjoyed uninterruptedly the companion- 
ship of her parents and lived with them, in spite 
of their so-called ''disgrace," a triumphant and 
higlily intellectual life. 



198 MABAME BE STAEL. 

Of course, with her natural propensity for emotion, 
she early conceived a romantic attachment for one 
of the many who came to her home, a very con- 
spicuous personage, the Monsieur Guibert later 
distinguished by the love of Mademoiselle de 
Lespinasse. This gentleman, with his engaging 
ways, captivated her as he had captivated other 
less impressionable maidens and, what is perhaps 
more agreeable to contemplate, he entertained at 
least a passing fancy for Necker's brilliant daughter. 
He wrote a "portrait " of her, in which he described 
her as a priestess of Apollo with dark, luminous eyes 
and black, floating curls and features that marked 
her for a superior destiny. 

This portrait of Mademoiselle Necker by Mon- 
sieur Guibert was one of many read in the Necker 
salon. To the many Mademoiselle ISTecker con- 
tributed her share. And these portraits, executed 
by her with a frank exaggeration which was not 
without its charm, were not the only products of 
her pen. At the time of Necker's fall from power, 
when she was only fifteen years of age it should be 
remembered, she wrote her father an anonymous 
letter. This letter showed a perfect understand- 
ing of his position. Its style betrayed her. More- 
over, as she advanced in her teens, she wrote 
ambitious tragedies and novelettes. She quite 
shocked her somewhat Calvinistic mamma with a 
play called " Sophie," which had for its subject the 
struggles of a young girl against her love for her 
guardian, a married man. 



MADAME DE STAEL. 199 

Her writing was done out of sight of lier teasing 
papa. Necker exceedingly disliked authorship in 
a woman. He sought to dissuade his daughter 
from the pursuit of letters. He nicknamed her 
Mademoiselle de Sainte Ecritoire. But all his 
badinage could not suppress her literar}^ effusions. 
These were the natural exhalations of her soul. 

As time went on, however, and Germaine's 
twentieth birthday approached, her authorship was 
temporarily abandoned and forgotten. The question 
of her marriage arose and engrossed, to the exclusion 
of all else, the attention of the Necker family. 

Formerly, while she was still a child, simple and 
naive in spite of pedantry, Germaine had given her 
consideration to this question of her marriage. She 
had observed the great respect in which Gibbon, 
the famous English historian, was held by her 
parents, the pleasure which his conversation af- 
forded them. She herself, it must be confessed, 
found him very corpulent and ugly and not at all 
to her taste. However, she waived all personal 
considerations, and ver^^ seriously, and in a spirit 
of duty and infinite love, proposed to her father 
and mother that she would marry their much 
revered friend. " We would live with you, of 
course, and you could hear Monsieur Gibbon talk 
forever and ever." We can imagine her express- 
ing herself thus quaintly and in all sincerity. 
Needless to say, the sacrifice w^as not demanded of 
her. With the sanction of Monsieur and. Madame 



200 MADAME DE STAEL. 

Necker, Gibbon remained a bachelor, and Ger- 
maine was reserved for fate in another shape than 
that of the almost spherical English historian. 

The large fortune of Mademoiselle Necker, even 
more than her brilliant mind it is to be feared, at- 
tracted many suitors. Conspicuous among them 
were Prince George Augustus of Mechlenburg, 
brother of the reigning duke, William Pitt of Eng- 
land, and the Baron de Stael Holstein. Of these 
the Prince was so impudent as to declare that he 
desired the lady only on account of her enormous 
dower. His proposals were therefore rejected by 
Monsieur and Madame Necker with a becoming 
promptitude. Madame Necker favored the claims 
of Pitt. Her discerning mind appreciated his char- 
acter and ability and interpreted them, no doubt, 
as marks of future greatness. She praised him 
to Germaine, and was displeased when that young 
lady turned a deaf ear. It was not the English- 
man, but the Swedish baron whom Germaine pre- 
ferred. 

The reason of her choice was to be found in her 
love for her father. She could not endure the 
thought of leaving France and him for any hus- 
band. De Stael's virtue in her eyes, therefore, was 
his French residence. 

Finding favor in the young lady's sight, the 
baron was encouraged to press his suit ardently. 
He had much in his favor. He was a favorite at 
court, a liberal like Necker, and, also, like Necker, 



MADAME BE STAEL. 201 

a Protestant, Moreover, lie had recently been 
appointed Swedish ambassador at the Court of 
France and, in view of the marriage, it had been 
arranged with his king, Gustavus, that he was to 
remain in that capacity for an indefinitely long term 
of years. Necker received him graciously, ma- 
dame, who remembered Pitt, a little coldly. At 
length, after due consideration and negotiation, he 
was accepted. The marriage settlement was drawn 
up and signed by the king and queen and numer- 
ous other important personages, and on the four- 
teenth of January, 1786, the wedding, a very im- 
posing one, took place. 

It was by no means a marriage of love. The 
groom was thirty-seven, and interested in obtaining 
a fine fortune. The bride was twenty, in love with 
her father, and desirous of remaining always in his 
neighborhood. On both sides there was a friendli- 
ness, but nothing of a deep or enduring character. 
Indeed, the affair was quite manifestly one of con- 
venience. 

On the last night that she spent under her 
father's roof, Germaine was very serious. She 
thought of the future. But more than that she 
thought of the past. It seemed to her that in that 
moment, " as in that of death," all her deeds re- 
turned to her. She was possessed with a sadness, 
a regret, a desire to make right, in so far as she was 
able, all her past errors and failings. And quite 
naturally, in that '' moment " of self-judgment, it 



202 MADAME BE 8TAEL. 

was not to her father, between whom and herself 
there had never been a coolness, but to her mother 
that she addressed herself. She wrote a farewell 
letter to Madame Necker, wistfully breathing a 
hope that she might be missed, generously blaming 
herself for all past dissensions, and warmly express- 
ing the tenderness which she " felt for her mother, 
and which at that moment was so deep," she said, 
"as to convince her that it had always been the 
same." Thus in a spirit of sweet humility, asking 
pardon for her faults, with a backward glance of 
love for all that she was leaving, Germaine went 
out from her father's home. 

A brilliant and eventful life awaited her. Im- 
mediately she was presented at court and attracted 
much attention there. The ultra-conventional 
criticised her. They said, with a smile of worldly 
wisdom and superiority, that she was very "sim- 
ple" and that her self-assurance was certainly 
" amusing ; " and when she tore her gown and 
omitted the third courtesy, they viewed her with 
glances of horror ; in their eyes she could not have 
committed a more grievous offence. The young 
madame, herself, however, only laughed. She 
could exist without the patronage of the ultra-con- 
ventional. All the thinking people of France were 
gathering round her in an admiring circle. She was 
content in their society and did not miss the others. 

Shortly after Madame de Stael's marriage, her 
father was recalled to power. She herself, as soon 



MADAME DE STAEL. 203 

as she heard the news, in a jubilant frame of mind, 
hastened to Saint Ouen. To her congratulations 
her father responded sadly. " It is too late," he 
said. Madame Necker, too, shook her head. To 
her, as to her husband, it seemed that the outlook 
of France and his part therein were hopeless. But 
Madame de Stael would not listen to their fore- 
bodings. She was inspired with youthful ardor 
and unbounded confidence in her father. " Every 
day," she declared, warmly, *' he will do something 
good and prevent something bad." 

As the daughter of a minister and the wife of 
an ambassador, Madame de Stael's position had 
now become one of influence. Many distinguished 
men met in her parlors. Her house, indeed, was a 
rallying point not only for men like her father, 
who were monarchical and desired a constitution 
on the English model, but also for the more liberal 
politicians, such men as La Fayette, de Montmo- 
rency, and Narbonne, the constitutional royalists, 
who in '91 formed themselves into a powerful 
party. 

With these men and with the intelligent portion 
of Parisian society in general, Madame de Stael's 
talents, equally with her wealth and position, gave 
her distinction. While every one was discussing 
politics and idealizing about the glorious future of 
humanity, she discussed and idealized so wisely 
and eloquently that she was soon installed the 
presiding genius in all such conversations. More- 



204 3£ADAME BE STAEL. 

over, her first publication, her '' Letters on Jean 
Jacques," were bemg read and creatmg a sensation. 
Grimm described them as " a charming work " and 
eulogized them and their youthful author. 

Madame de Stael's " Letters on Jean Jacques " 
disclosed for the first time the remarkable reaches 
of her mind and soul. They revealed vistas of 
thought which in her later works appeared devel- 
oped and matured. Reading these letters, one 
beholds their author wandering in Elysian fiields, 
following re verentially in the footsteps of Rousseau, 
yet drawn now and then from the path of his 
choosing, by her own audacious fancy, into new 
and untried ways. The letters are a p^an of 
praise to him, her " literary parent." But through 
them there sounds, clear and strong, her own 
" motif." Now it peals forth with all the lightness 
and ardor and hopefulness of youth. At this 
period of her existence there was, as she herself 
phrased it, "something of the Scotch air in the 
music of her life." The motif was rippling in the 
treble key. As yet it only suggested and had not 
developed those sombre chords "intense and sor- 
rowful " which made the music of her later life. 

The time was at hand, however, when the fierce 
thunder of the Revolution was to drown the 
music of her life, when in anguish she was to 
reproach herself " even for thought, as something 
too independent of grief." The Scotch air died in 
her heart for the first time when fate aimed its 



MADAME BE STAEL. 205 

blow at her father. She was present at that dinner 
at which Necker received his communication from 
the king ordering him to leave France immediately 
and to depart in secrecy. She witnessed his read- 
ing of the letter in silence and calm, and did not 
suspect its contents. Dinner at an end, she saw 
her father and mother take leave of the company 
and drive oif in their carriage and supposed, as did 
every one else, that they were bound on a pleasure 
trip. 

Her indignation and sorrow, when the truth 
became known to her, may be imagined. Straight- 
way, accompanied by her husband, she hastened to 
overtake her parents, and came up with them at 
Brussels. Therefore she was able to make with 
them the triumphant return. Her father, in com- 
pliance with the demand of the populace, was re- 
called. The people who loved him, because to 
him they were indebted for the double representa- 
tion of the Third Estate, had prepared for him a 
glorious reception. The way back to Paris was 
strewn with roses. A jubilant crowd met him at 
the gates of every town and substituted themselves 
for horses and postilions. Everywhere he was 
greeted with shouts of " Vive Necker ! Vive 
Necker ! " Madame de Stael, looking into the en- 
thusiastic faces of the people, lived the proudest 
and happiest moment of her life. At no other 
time did the Scotch air sing itself so joyously in 
her heart. 



206 MADAME DE STAEL. 

A few months more and she was to see those 
same faces, which now expressed love, expressing 
instead hate. She was to hear the cries of " Vive 
Necker" changed to curses and false accusations. 
She was to learn how fleeting a thing is the favor 
of the multitude. Because Necker was sympathe- 
tic in too many directions, because he was sorry for 
a tottering king and queen, nobility and clergy, as 
well as for a down-trodden people, because he 
opposed certain popular measures and stood a little 
in the way of the popular ascendancy, he was dis- 
regarded and thrust aside. He tendered his resig- 
nation and it was received without protest or regret. 
In a spirit of Quixotic magnanimity, he deposited 
two millions of his own property in the royal 
treasury and silently took his leave. His escape 
to Switzerland was through a growling, snarling 
mob. He was hounded to the very gates of his 
country. It appeared that France had forgotten 
his many faithful services and chose to consider 
him a traitorous stranger. 

Madame de Stael soon followed her father to his 
Swiss retreat. She knew now that he had spoken 
truly when he said, " It is too late." Her young, 
bright, hopeful illusion had vanished. She stood 
face to face with the tragedy of his failure and of her 
country's danger. We can picture her seated by her 
father's side or walking with him along the margin 
of the beautiful lake, seeking with consoling words 
to cheer him, yet oppressed all the while with a 



MADAME BE STAEL. 207 

sadness like his own and apprehensions for their 
country's safety. 

Having made this visit of condolence to her 
father, IMadame de Stael returned to Paris. She 
regarded that city as an arena for a struggle in 
which her services might be needed. As of old, 
the constitutional royalists rallied in her salon. 
Conspicuous among them was Narbonne, young, 
brilliant, charming. Madame was his friend, 
warmly, devotedly his friend. Some whispered 
that she loved him too dearly. Yet so simple, so 
frank, so open, so devoid of all art and coquetry 
was madame's love for this gentleman that in its 
presence slander halted, uncertain and abashed, 
and posterity is left in doubt. Through the in- 
fluence of Madame de Stael, Narbonne was ap- 
pointed in December of '91 Minister of War. 
He did not hold the office long. In a few months 
he was dismissed by his king and sent to serve for 
a while in the war on the frontier. 

As the Revolution advanced and the Reign of 
Terror drew near, while proscriptions were the 
order of the day, and on all sides royalists and con- 
stitutionalists were perishing or fleeing, Madame 
de Stael, safe in her character of ambassadress, re- 
mained at Paris, ever watchful, active, and coura- 
geous in the cause of friendship. When at length 
the Baron de Stael was recalled by his government 
and the Tuileries were invaded, Necker wrote urg- 
ing his daughter to join him. But Madame de 



208 MADAME BE STAM. 

Stael would not leave so long as it was possible 
that by staying she might rescue a friend. 

Now it was in the interests of Narbonne that she 
lingered. The terrible tenth of August had passed 
and other days equally terrible had succeeded. 
Narbonne was among the proscribed. Knowing 
this, Madame de Stael sought him through the 
bloody city, found him in his place of hiding, 
brought him to her house, and concealed him there. 
When the police agents came demanding Monsieur 
de Narbonne, Madame de Stael was ready for them. 
She took advantage of their ignorance, demanding 
of them if they realized that they were violating 
their rights in invading the house of an ambas- 
sadress (she took pains not to tell them that her 
husband had been recently recalled) and warned 
them that unless they desisted, Sweden, which was 
dangerously near, would descend upon France. 
Having first frightened them, Madame de Stael 
next proceeded to pleasantries. She was very 
witty and charming. Before the police agents 
knew what was happening, they were being bowed 
gracefully out of the house. Four days later, 
Madame de Stael procured a false passport and by 
means of it Monsieur de Narbonne was enabled to 
escape to England. 

Again it was to save Lally ToUendal and Jan- 
court that she delayed. Jancourt, a former mem- 
ber of the Legislative Assembly, and Lally Tollendal 
had been sent to the Abbaye, which was only too 



MADAME DE 8TAEL. 209 

aptly termed " the ante-chamber of death." To 
many their doom seemed certain. Not so, however, 
to Madame de Stael, the cheerful, the determined, 
the indefatigable. She hastily ran over in her mind 
the names of the members of the Commune who 
sat in judgment on her friends, and bethought her 
of one Manuel, a man of literary pretensions, who 
she believed might be susceptible to flattery. At 
the democratic hour of seven in the morning she 
made an appointment with him and called upon 
him at his house. She appealed first to his 
vanity, then to his humanity. She spoke of the 
terrible times, of the uncertainty of all lives. 
" Think," she said, '' in six months you may no 
longer have power* Save Lally and Jancourt. 
Reserve for yourself a sweet and consoling recol- 
lection when you may be proscribed." Her elo- 
quence conquered. The next day she received a 
letter from Manuel informing her that Condorcet 
had obtained the liberation of Lally, and that he 
himself had released Jancourt in answer to her 
entreaties. 

At length, having done all that she could for 
her friends, Madame de Stael decided to leave 
France. True, even at this final moment, to her 
life-preserving character, she planned to take with 
her the Abbe de Montesquion in the disguise of 
a domestic. He was given the passport of one 
of her servants and was to meet her at an appointed 
rendezvous. 



210 MADAME BE STAEL. 

The rendezvous was never reached, however, 
and the scheme failed in most alarming fashion. 
Madame de Stael's carriage had proceeded only a 
short distance on its outward-bound journey when 
it was surrounded by an angry mob and stopped. 
Madame was accused of seeking to take away pro- 
scribed royalists and was ordered to proceed to the 
Hotel de Ville under the command of a gendarme. 
Her carriage was straightway turned about and led, 
long and wearily, at a foot pace, through the 
crowd, amid cries of " Death." 

Up the steps of the Hotel de Ville, on which 
same steps only the day following the Princess de 
Lamballe perished, between a double row of pikes, 
Madame de Stael mounted. She was conducted 
into the presence of Kobespierre and a host of pas- 
sionate people all shouting "Vive la Nation." 
Before this audience she immediately proceeded, 
forcibly and eloquently as was her way, to plead 
her right to depart as an ambassadress. 

She might have spoken to deaf ears, had it not 
been for the opportune appearance of Manuel. 
He gave his word to the people that he would be 
responsible for her until the Commune should 
decide her fate, and escorted her and her maid to 
his own house. There, in the same room in which 
she had entreated for Lally and Jancourt, she re- 
mained for six hours "dying," as she herself 
expressed it, " of hunger, thirst, and fear." In 
the evening Manuel, himself pale with horror at 



MADAME BE STAEL. 211 

the scenes which he had that day witnessed, came 
to her. He told her that he had obtained a pass- 
port for herself and one maid ; and that she was 
to leave Paris the next morning under the escort 
of a gendarme. 

The next morning several suspected aristocrats 
came to say good-bye to Madame de Stael. She did 
not send them away. She received them warmly, 
kissing them, even, we may imagine, under the 
eyes of the gendarme, imploring him tremulously 
meanwhile to be "discreet." Thus, mindful of 
her friends to the very last and sick at heart, 
Madame de Stael took her departure. 

She went directly to Switzerland, to Coppet, to 
her father and mother. There nature, beautiful 
and vast, awaited her. But nature did not comfort 
her. Kather it surprised and hurt her. She 
mourned over the sorrows of her friends and her 
mutilated country even in the presence of Mount 
Blanc and Lake Leman. She reproached the 
mountains for their undisturbed and lofty gran- 
deur, the lake for its bright, careless calm. Her 
soul cried then, as later her pen w^rote : "Oh, earth ! 
steeped in tears and blood, thou bringest forth 
thy fruits and flowers unceasingly ! Hast thou, 
then, no pity for man and can his dust return into 
thy maternal bosom without causing it to bound ? " 

With the birds singing about her, she heard only 
from afar the strokes of the guillotine and each 
blow^ struck her heart. And with all of fair Swit- 



212 MADAME DE STAEL. 

zerland before her to attract her gaze, she looked 
behind sadly, pitifully, at poor, disfigured France. 
She loved the victims who were falling there. She 
was in turn a sister, a brother, a wife, a daughter, 
a son, a father, and most of all, she was a mother 
— so tender, so protecting was her love for all that 
suffering humanity. 

Her efforts were directed toward giving such 
relief as she was able. Coppet became an asylum 
for proscribed emigres. Thither came Mathieu 
de Montmorency, Jancourt, the Princess de Poix, 
and Madame de Simiane. Madame de Stael con- 
stantly was engaged devising plans that would 
enable proscribed persons to escape from France. 
She procured for them Swiss passports in which 
they were given Swiss names. She sent her 
agents to them, and these, infused with something 
of her own enthusiasm and heroism, conducted the 
proscribed, first one, then another, away from the 
noisy, bloody arena of Paris, across the snowcapped 
Juras, to the waiting silence of Coppet. She 
opened her doors to friends and foes alike. In 
times of need her generous heart knew no distinc- 
tions. 

Once it was for a nephew of Jancourt, Achille 
du Chayla, that she labored. The young man had 
been arrested at a town on the frontier of Switzer- 
land under the suspicion that the name on the 
passport was not his true name, and that he was a 
refugee Frenchman — a suspicion which was, of 



MADAME BE STASL. 218 

course, correct. He was to be imprisoned until 
Monsieur de Reverdil, a certain Swiss magistrate, 
could see liim and ascertain whether or not he were 
a Frenchman. Here was a crucial case. It re- 
quired all of Madame de Stael's skill and power. 
She hastened to Monsieur de Reverdil, who luckily 
happened to be an old family friend. She was 
closeted with him a long while, arguing, entreat- 
ing, demanding. Her object, of course, was to per- 
suade him to save the young man by a falsehood, 
to deny his French identity. Monsieur Reverdil 
protested, " If I do what you ask and if the truth 
be discovered, I shall no longer have the right to 
claim our own countrymen when they are arrested 
in France. Thus I shall jeopardize the interests 
of those confided to my official care for the sake of 
a man who has no legal claim on me." Madame 
listened and knew that he was speaking sensibly 
and justly. But all the while she was thinking of 
her friend Jancourt, who was at Coppet and to 
whom she desired to bring back the assurance of 
his nephew's safety. She swept away all abstract 
reasoning, all considerations of possible future diffi- 
culty. She sought, as she confessed, to overcome 
Monsieur Reverdil's conscience by his humanity. 
" If you say no," again and again she sternly 
reiterated, " an only son, a man without reproach, 
will be killed within twenty-four hours and your 
word will have slain him." The Swiss magistrate 
was finally, quite inevitably it would seem, over- 



214 MADAME BE STAEL. 

powered and vanquished. The young man was 
restored to his uncle. Madame de Stael rejoiced. 

She was not always so successful, however. 
Sometimes her projects failed and she had to be a 
messenger of sorrow to her friends at Coppet. At 
such times she spoke comfort and cheer and, when 
these failed, a silent sympathy, more expressive 
than words, looked from her eyes. Many days un- 
til the Reign of Terror had passed she lived thus, 
mourning, helping, comforting, devoting herself, 
her fortune, and her home to her afflicted friends. 

In this existence, tragic almost in its sombre 
monotony, the onlj^ interruptions were a visit to 
England and her mother's death. The memoirs of 
Fanny Burney (Madame d'Arblay) and the diary 
of Mrs. Phillips present interesting pictures of the 
English visit of the Mickleham colony and its 
band of exiles, of Talleyrand, the wit, of Monsieur 
de Narbonne, the charming, of d'Arblay, whom after- 
wards Fanny married, and of Madame de Stael, 
imperfect and lovable always. 

It was not long after Madame - de Stael's return 
from England that Madame Necker died. Mother 
and daughter had never fully understood each 
other. There had always been a something lacking 
in their intercourse. Yet Madame de Stael had 
appreciated her mother's noble character, had loved 
her, and now mourned. Her keenest grief, how- 
ever, was in the contemplation of her father's 
sorrow. Between Necker and his wife, there had 



MADAME DE STAJ^L. 215 

always existed an ideal affection and devotion. In 
their life together Madame de Stael had seen 
realized that " love in marriage " which she deemed 
the highest human happiness. She had looked on 
reverently, yearningly, sadly, knowing that she 
herself could never attain that happiness. Now it 
had passed and Necker sat with bowed head in his 
study. But its memory was to be to the daughter 
a thing beautiful and sacred, a perpetual inspira- 
tion. 

During the months of the Reign of Terror 
Madame de Stael did not write. Before the awful 
drama that was being enacted in her native land, 
her muse stood silent and aghast, speaking only 
once, and then in eloquent defence of the unfortu- 
nate queen. They were months of darkness, of 
utter discouragement and sadness. And yet, while 
Madame de Stael and her companion spirits were 
despairing, " the period of their deliverance," to 
quote madame's own words, "was preparing." 
The ninth of Thermidor was approaching, the fall 
of Robespierre, and the relief of France. 

Shortly after the ninth of Thermidor Madame de 
Stael returned to Paris. Immediately she made 
her appeal to the people. It was for compromise, 
toleration, unity. Hitherto she had been a consti- 
tutional royalist. Now she became avowedly a 
republican. It was one thing, she told her aristo- 
cratic friends, to oppose a republic while it was 
still an experiment, a thing of doubtful success. 



216 MADAME BE STAEL. 

and it was quite another thing to oppose it when it 
was established. To overthrow the repubhc, she 
declared, and to restore the old monarchial form of 
government would necessitate the shedding of as 
much blood as had already flowed, and she revolted 
against the idea of further bloodshed. She wanted 
peace for her country, a healing, reinstating peace. 
Thus, above the wrangling of the factions at the 
capital, her voice rose pleadingly, gently, soothingly. 

The liberal constitution of the year III. (1795) 
and the first six months of the directory found in 
her an eloquent supporter. And yet while she 
declared openly and fairly for the new government, 
her allegiance did not engross her to the exclusion 
of all other interests and sympathies. Her great 
magnanimous heart could not bend to any abstract 
theory of justice. " My political opinions," she 
once declared, "are proper names." There was 
some truth in this remark ; her political opinions, 
while firmly founded on principle, always admitted 
abundant scope for consideration and care of the 
unfortunate. Thus it happened that, even as she 
took her stand on the side of the republic, across 
the chasm that separated her from her old-time 
beliefs and traditions, she extended a helping 
hand to her friends among the exiled nobility and 
clergy. She obtained the recall of Montmorency, 
Talleyrand, and the Abbe Montesquion. 

In consequence of this diligence on behalf of the 
aristocrats, she was denounced from the tribune of 



MADAME DE STAEL. 217 

the convention. The attack, however, was foiled 
by Barras, a friendly member. Again, having in- 
stigated the recall of Nupont de Nemours and 
certain other unpopular individuals, she was ad- 
vised, somewhat threateningly, by the Committee 
of Public Safety to absent herself from France. 
Prudently, but very much against her will, she 
retired for a brief while. 

She was soon back again in Paris and continued 
in her independent course, which was to unite 
opposites, to reconcile, so far as she was able, 
irreconcilables. Her salon was still hospitably open 
to Narbonne and Montmorency and other constitu- 
tional royalists of old time acquaintance. And 
once every decade (for thus did people persist in 
reckoning time, and the week had not yet reap- 
peared) she received Benjamin Constant, Chenier, 
the poet, and the writers of the " Decade Philoso- 
phique." Madame de Stael was never exclusive in 
her social connections, but at all times liberal and 
broadly sympathetic, even to the point of indiscre- 
tion. 

Among those who sat once every decade at her 
table, Benjamin Constant was the most conspicu- 
ous, the most brilliant guest. An old young man, 
weary of the world and its experiences, he had 
come to France as the one country where the novel 
and the unexpected might yet be found. Of 
course he created a sensation in the Parisian salons. 
With his long, fair hair, his clever, handsome face, 



218 MADAME BE STAEL, 

and his awkward grace of manner, he was, first of 
all, of an unusual and attractive appearance. More- 
over, there was a distinct charm in his capricious 
and tormenting personality. Eternally logical and 
cynical, without illusions and without enthusiasm, 
he presented a striking contrast to the ever simple, 
ardent, genial Madame de Stael. He and she were 
drawn to each other by the law of opposites, and 
reacted the one upon the other, catching each 
other's fires of genius, and shining all the more 
brightly for their reflected lights. 

Early in their intercourse, the Cercle Constitu- 
tionnel was formed. Of this republican club, which 
was run counter to the royalist Club de Clichy, 
Constant was the chief orator and Madame de 
Stael the soul. Their cry was for moderation. 
They desired to preserve their country from the 
two extremes of royalism and terrorism. How- 
ever, they lifted their voices in vain. Their worst 
fears were realized on the eighteenth of Fructidor 
(Sept. 4, 1797), when the government was usurped 
by the Directory and a military despotism estab- 
lished. Madame de Stael had exerted her influ- 
ence to obtain the appointment of Talleyrand to the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, hoping thereby to 
avert disaster. But Talleyrand, whose selfish nature 
for some unaccountable reason she had failed to 
fathom, disappointed expectation, and in spite of 
her earnest efforts the events of the eighteenth of 
Fructidor happened. 



MADAME BE 8TAEL. 219 

Two years later, when on the eighteenth of Bru- 
maire (November 9) the government passed from 
the hands of the Directory into those of the three 
Consuls, Bonaparte, Sieyes, and Roger Ducos, Ma- 
dame de Stael's attitude became one of opposition. 
She and Constant united in a firm bond of resist- 
ance. These two, who were so dissimilar, v/ere one 
in their love of liberty and hatred of tyranny. 
The antagonism which the despotism of the First 
Consul woke in both their hearts formed the final 
link between them. Together they raised a cry, 
the loudest and most triumphant in denunciation 
of the new government. 

Madame de Stael had been favorably impressed 
at first with Napoleon. She recognized his great- 
ness, and in her imagination credited him with a 
disinterestedness and high-mindedness which he 
never possessed. When she heard that he intended 
an invasion of Switzerland, she went to him, hoping 
to dissuade him from such a course. Napoleon re- 
ceived her graciously, listened to her patiently, but 
to all her arguments and pleadings he replied with 
talk in praise of solitude, country life, and the fine 
arts, for all which things, be it understood, he 
cared not a straw. Madame de Stael departed 
from his presence convinced that the eloquence of 
Cicero and Demosthenes combined could not move 
him, yet charmed against her will by his pleasant 
manner, his " false bonhomie." She had failed in 
her project, but she had learned to know the man. 



220 MADAME BE STAEL, 



He was, she determined, a person of individual 
purpose, indifferent to suffering, devoted to mate- 
rial success. 

As for Napoleon's feeling toward Madame de 
Stael, it was hatred from the start. He liked 
women to be pretty toys, without opinions and 
without emotions. This Madame de Stael, who 
had such decided views on all subjects, who was so 
overpowering in her conversation, so energetic in 
her conduct, so notoriously noble and unselfish in 
her character, she exasperated and antagonized 
him. Moreover, he feared her as a dangerous rival. 
He was able to repress other people, but her he 
could not repress. She was a star whom his all- 
glorious and all-dazzling sunshine could not extin- 
guish. She received in her salon the most intel- 
lectual people of the age. She inspired them with 
her spirit. She was the centre from which the 
opposition emanated. 

Upon his coming to power on the eighteenth of 
Brumaire, Napoleon seemed desirous of winning 
her to his side. His brother, Joseph Bonaparte, 
whom Madame de Stael numbered among her 
friends, went to her with a question that sounded 
like a message from the Consul. What was it she 
desired, it was asked. Did she wish the two mill- 
ions to be restored to her father, or residence in 
Paris permitted him ? On both these points she 
should be satisfied. Then it was that she spoke 
those words that have become historic : " The 



MADAME DE STAEL. 221 

question is not what I tvant, but what I 
thinkr 

Protests against the growing despotism of Na- 
poleon were proceeding from the Tribunat. Cons- 
tant was the leader of the opposition, and it was 
a known fact that Madame de Stael applauded and 
even instigated him. She was by no means igno- 
rant of the risk she ran and may have anticipated 
already in her thought the exile that awaited her. 

On the eve of the day on which Constant was to 
make his celebrated speech, Madame de Stael was 
in her salon surrounded by her friends. Constant 
drew her aside and warned her that if he spoke 
as they had agreed that he should speak, on the 
morrow, her rooms would be empt}^, she would 
be deserted. Nevertheless she replied firmly : 
" You must obey your conscience." Often in 
later years, worn out with suffering, she came 
near to regretting that answer, yet always in her 
truest moments she rejoiced in it. 

Constant spoke. On the same day, Madame 
de Stael had invited to dinner several persons 
whose society she said she particularly enjoyed, 
but who were all adherents of the new govern- 
ment. The dinner hour approached, but instead 
of guests, notes of excuse arrived. Her friends 
ceremoniously abandoned her, among them he 
whose recall from exile and whose appointment 
to the ministry she had obtained. Madame de 
Stael was not surprised, perhaps, but she was 



222 MADAME BE STAEL. 

wounded, and in her most tender part, her heart. 

From this time on until 1803 Madame de Stael 
lived alternately at Coppet and Paris. Her resist- 
ance of Napoleon's despotism was constantly 
forcing her away from the city, her own influence 
there was as constantly drawing her back again 
and reinstating her. She may be said to have 
fluctuated, with the ebb and flow of popular 
opinion, between the two places. 

During this period Madame de Stael separated 
from her husband. The reason was given that 
the baron was a spendthrift and she wished to 
secure beyond his reach the fortunes of her 
children, August, Albert, and Albertine. The 
baron went out of her life without leaving any 
deep impression upon it. He died in 1802. Hear- 
ing of his illness, Madame de Stael went to him 
and nursed him and set out to take him with 
her to Coppet, but he died on the way thither. 

Madame de Stael was at this time more than 
thirty years of age. Though still comparatively 
young, she had experienced much. She had 
known persecution and calumny and the falling 
off of friends. She had realized, too, to her sor- 
row, that she would never be loved with a love 
such as she could give. She determined, how- 
ever, not to be disheartened, but to devote her 
life and her talents to her writing, to win by 
means of her pen a fame that should compensate 
her for what she was denied. "Let us," she 



MADAME BE STAEL. 223 

wrote in a preface to one of her famous works, 
"stand up under the weight of existence. Let 
us not give our unjust enemies and our ungrate- 
ful friends the triumph of having crushed our 
intellectual forces. Those who would have been 
content with affection, they have reduced 
to the strife for glory. Well, then, that glory 
shall be won." 

She had already published her book on the 
"Passions" and her work on "Literature," the 
latter in 1801. Half of Paris, out of compliment 
to Napoleon, had condemned what she had written, 
the rest had applauded, and her deserted salon 
was once more thronged with guests. But her 
three greatest triumphs, " Delphine," " Corinne," 
and " Germany," were still before her. 

Toward the close of 1802 " Delphine " appeared. 
Immediately the newspapers were full of it. 
Every one was talking about it. Some denounced 
it, others were enthusiastic in their praise of it. 
But, while voices were disputing as to its merit, 
all were one in declaring that the book was a 
success. 

The fact that many of the characters were 
drawn from life added to the interest of the book. 
People searched its pages for portraits, and found 
them. Delphine, it was determined, was the 
author herself, Madame de Stael, in her youth, 
with all her early illusions and hopes and senti- 
ments ; M. Labensei was Benjamin Constant 



224 MADAME BE STAEL. 

idealized, so it was declared ; and Madame de 
Vernon, it was whispered, was in feminine dis- 
guise that famous politician who had repaid 
Madame de Stael's many kindnesses by pleasantly 
and selfishly declining her invitation to dinner 
and thereby deserting her. 

The success of " Delphine " added greatly to 
madame's influence. Her salon was more crowded 
than ever before. Even so illustrious a person 
as the Prince of Orange was among her guests. 
This was reported to Napoleon ; and it was added 
maliciously by the informant that every rebellious 
w^ord and deed which preceded from the Tribunat 
was known and approved by Madame de Stael. 
Napoleon's imperial wrath (he had recently been 
declared Consul for life) blazed out at the news. 
Formerly he had only intimated his desires that 
madame should betake herself into the country. 
This time he commanded. Madame de Stael 
received a letter signed by Napoleon ordering her 
to depart to a distance of forty leagues from Paris. 

Thus began Madame de Stael's ten years of 
exile. Forced to leave France, Madame de Stael 
turned her steps to Germany. She travelled 
thither in company with Constant (who was also 
exiled) and her three children. A new sphere 
had opened out before her. Hitherto, by choice 
she had confined herself to Paris and the Parisian 
people. Henceforth she was to make the continent 
her stage and all the people of Europe her 



MADAME BE STAEL. 225 

audience. Her mind, coming within range of the 
great minds of other countries, was to broaden and 
receive additional force and inspiration. 

Yet, spite of the many splendors of the new and 
vast field on which she had entered, Madame de 
Stael, while glorying in these splendors, sighed 
yearningly for the little plot of home territory that 
was forbidden ground. Launched in eloquent 
praise of Germany, its enlightenment, its culture, 
and its institutions, she would break off abruptly. 
" Oh, for a morsel of France ! " she would exclaim. 
She spoke of her travels as a continuous chain, of 
which one end was Paris and the other her 
heart. 

In Germany Madame de Stael visited Berlin and 
Weimar and made the acquaintance of Goethe, 
Schiller, Heine, Schlegel, and the German princes. 
Goethe admired her against his will. Schiller found 
her the most talkative and the most intellectual 
of women, and complained with a delightful ming- 
ling of pathos and humor that the devil had sent 
'' the French female philosopher " to torment him 
just in the middle of his new play. Heine 
described her as "a vi^hirlwind in petticoats." 
And Schlegel comprehended her, appreciated her, 
and made himself her friend. 

A sad event, perhaps the saddest in her life, re- 
called Madame de Stael from Germany and brought 
her back to Coppet. Her father, who was the 
one dearest to her in the world, died. At a much 



226 MADAME BE STAEL. 

later day, when madame herself was dying, she 
spoke thus to a friend : " I have always been the 
same intense and sorrowful. I have loved God, 
my father, and liberty." Grave, beautiful words, 
they reveal her soul in all its strength, simplicity, 
and fervor. From them we know the place her 
father held in her affections and may realize what 
losing him meant to her. One of Necker's last 
acts had been to plead with Napoleon (fruitlessly, 
of course) for his daughter. " It was the last 
time," wrote Madame de Stael, "that his protect- 
ing hand was extended over my life." 

Madame de Stael passed her season of first 
mourning in editing her father's works. In 1804 
she set out with August Schlegel and her three 
children for Italy. Here, for the first time, under 
the bluest of skies and the tutorship of Schlegel, 
she made the acquaintance of the fine arts. Here 
she conversed with the Roman princes, was made 
an Arcadian Academician and had " endless son- 
nets " written to her. And here, too, she dreamed, 
and conceived that poetic " Corinne," which was 
later to be born to the world of literature. 

Immediately upon her return to Switzerland, 
Madame de Stael began to write " Corinne." As 
she drew near to its close, her homesickness for 
Paris became intense. When her attention was 
called to the beauty of Leman, she could only turn 
away her face and sigh. " Oh, for the stream of 
the Rue du Bac ! " she exclaimed. The Rue du 



MADAME BE STAEL. 22T 

Bac flowed near her city residence, and once, 
when a friend with whom she was walking paused 
to admire the view, "So," she observed, "still 
prejudiced in favor of the country ! " And then, 
perceiving that she had said something surprising, 
she smiled apologetically. Thus she was contin- 
ually disclosing her lack of appreciation of nature 
and her absorbing passion for society, conversation, 
and the haunts of men, especially for all these 
things as they existed in Paris. 

At length the magnet proving irresistible and 
Fouchet, the chief of police, whose policy it was to 
do "as little needless harm as possible," conde- 
scending to shut one eye, she shortened the pro- 
scribed distance to eighteen leagues and established 
herself at Acosta. Here she received her friends, 
and read the proof-sheets of her book, and occa- 
sionally ventured stealthily, by the light of the 
stars, within the bounds of her beloved city. Her 
sincere emotion got the better of her dignity. 
And yet, do we love her any the less for this ? 

In 1807 Corinne was published. It was wel- 
comed by all Europe and enthusiastically praised. 
It gave to the world of literature one more immor- 
tal character, one more love song that men would 
not forget. In Corinne, as in Delphine, people 
recognized Madame de Stael. " Corinne is Del- 
phine," wrote the poet Chenier, " Delphine matured 
and acting under the twofold inspiration of genius 
and love." 



228 MADAME BE STAEL. 

Of course, the ruler of France was incensed by 
this new triumph of his rival. A scathing criti- 
cism of the book, which appeared shortly after its 
publication, in the columns of the Moniteur, was 
reported to have been written by his imperial 
hand. A new decree of punishment followed. 
Madame de Stael was once more driven back to 
Coppet. 

Coppet, the brilliant, the regal, the inspired ! 
Although Madame de Stael turned her steps thither 
so reluctantly and fretted against her residence 
there like a prisoner against his iron bar, neverthe- 
less it was at Coppet that she appeared in her full 
majesty and at her best, and it is at Coppet that 
imagination likes best to place her. 

At Coppet she was always surrounded by a court 
that represented the talent, wit, beauty, birth, and 
intellect of Europe. Among the most frequent of 
her visitors Avere Constant and Schlegel, Sismondi 
and Bonstetten, the famous beauty, Madame 
Recamier, with whom all the world was in love, 
and the priestess who had once been so notorious a 
coquette, Madame de Kriidner. 

The world at Coppet had its various moods. 
Sometimes it was serious and philosophic; then 
words flew among the company like arrows, a very 
rain of them, pointed, swift, and sure, and never 
did arrows make more dazzling flights than the 
winged words of Constant and Madame de Stael. 
Sometimes, again, the world at Coppet was merely 



MADAME BE STAEL. 229 

gay, enjoyment was the order of the day; then 
plays were acted, often classics, but oftener come- 
dies and tragedies written by the hostess or one of 
the guests. And finally the world at Coppet was 
sometimes fractious and had its quarrellings and 
makings-up. Beneath the trees, beside the lake, 
love was declared and hearts were broken and 
enduring friendships were formed. 

In the world of Coppet, so Arcadian, so Edenlike 
if we do not seek to study it too long or too closely, 
there were occasional storms. All was not calm 
and pleasant between Constant and Madame de 
Stael, They were continually accusing each other, 
apologizing, and making promises. Constant 
desired to marry Madame de Stael. She, however, 
would only consent to a secret marriage, and he 
would have none but an open one. Madame Re- 
camier was the peace-maker between them. She rec- 
onciled them to each other, and then they quarrelled 
again. Finally, in 1808, Constant himself put an 
end to all these complications and perplexities by 
marriage with another woman. 

Toward the close of 1807 Madame de Stael left 
Coppet and made a second visit to Germany. She 
stayed there collecting material for a book on Ger- 
many which she was planning to write. She 
returned to Coppet in the fall of 1808 and straight- 
way entered upon her new work. For two years 
she labored steadily in the composition of this, her 
longest and most arduous literary production. As 



230 MADAME BE STAEL. 

soon as she had completed it she established herself 
at Blois for the sake of correcting the proof-sheets 
as they issued from the press. 

The story of the suppression of the book, culmi- 
nating act of Napoleon's cruelty, is well-known. 
The literary censors seized it on the very eve of its 
publication. The sheets were sent to the paste- 
board maker and were destroyed, and the authoress 
was commanded to leave Paris within three days 
for Coppet. The book was not published until 
three years later, 1813, when it appeared in Eng- 
land and was the event of the season. 

Madame de Stael's bitterness on the occasion of 
the suppression of her book may be imagined. 
Her time and labor wasted and oppression redoubled 
when she was beginning to hope for reconciliation ! 
One does not wonder that her great heart sank 
under this added weight of persecution. 

Her marriage to Monsieur Rocca, which occurred 
at this time, served in a measure to lighten the 
burden. Madame de Stael had always longed for 
love. Not many knew this. The world in general 
believed her all mind. Some few, however, such 
as Byron, divined in her the presence of an unseen 
force, a deep, emotional nature. Her marriage 
with Rocca, a young man twenty years her junior, 
revealed her secret at a late and (as society judged) 
at an untimely date. Her own mature age and 
Rocca's wounds and failing health gave to this 
tardy happiness an air of sadness. 



MADAME BE STAEL. 231 

The year 1811, following the suppression of her 
Germany and preceding her flight, was a hard 
year, indeed one might almost say the hardest year, 
for Madame de Stael. Then no longer her " motif " 
rippled, even for a moment, lightly, brightly in the 
treble key. It sounded now only in those sombre 
chords, those final harmonies that were to intro- 
duce the noble funeral march. Her youth, in 
which she had rejoiced so fondly, was gone. 
Friends were cooling, darkening towards her, and 
deserting her. Others, the true, were made to 
suffer for her sake. Madame Recamier and Ma- 
thieu de Montmorency were banished from France 
in consequence of a visit which they paid her. 
Schlegel, accountably for no other reason than his 
faithfulness to her, was ordered to leave Coppet. 
More than all else Madame de Stael lamented this 
striking down of her devoted friends. " I am the 
Orestes of exile," she declared, sorrowfully 

At this point, this crisis in her vicissitudes, the 
prefect of Geneva came to her and suggested that 
she write something in honor of Napoleon's son, 
the little king of Rome, and thereby instate herself 
in favor. She replied unhesitatingly with one of 
those brilliant flashes of repartee that so illumi- 
nated her discourse. " All I desire for the child is 
a good nurse," she said. Her love of liberty, her 
indomitable spirit, never faltered and, though so 
sorely pressed, she would not stoop to propitiate 
her persecutor by one word of praise. 



232 MADAME DE STAEL, 

Meanwhile, to Madame de Stael Europe had 
become a prison. She studied its map; planning 
whither she should make her escape. She de- 
termined upon England. But so closely was she 
watched, so restricted was she in her movements, 
that she was forced to travel thither stealthily by 
way of Brussels and Sweden. She stayed in Eng- 
land until the happy time when the abdication of 
JSTapoleon and the Restoration opened the gates of 
Paris to her. Then, once more her eager foot- 
steps were treading the dear, familiar streets. 

She brought to the capital, with her, politics that 
were no longer republican. The English consti- 
tution had taken possession of her mind. She 
returned to that liberal royalism of opinion that 
she had professed in her youthful days beneath her 
father's roof. She was weary of the political tur- 
moil through which France had been passing and 
desired for her country a system mild, " homelike," 
and old fashioned. 

During the all too brief term of life that remained 
to her, Madame de Stael resumed her old ways. 
Once more she held court in her Parisian salon 
and received there as in former days LaFayette, Lally 
ToUendal, Montmorency, even the faithless Talley- 
rand. In Madame de StaeTs generous soul there 
was no place for rancor, and she welcomed friends 
and forgave offenders with an indiscriminate cord- 
iality of spirit. 

Her last days were made pleasant for her by the 



MADAME DE STAEL. 233 

happy marriage of her daughter Albertiiie, the noble 
career of her eldest son August, and the devotion 
of her young husband. Her friends, too, many of 
whom had estranged themselves from her, gathered 
affectionately about her again. At her side appeared 
the faces of Montmorency, Sismondi, Constant, 
and the dear Juliette (Madame Recamier), and her 
celebrated lover, Chateaubriand. For the last time 
the " dark, magnificent " eyes smiled upon them 
and the eloquent lips spoke final words of comfort 
and love. 

All Europe mourned the death of Madame de 
Stael. Many funeral tributes were rendered to 
her in many places and at many times. Of these 
none, perhaps, was more touching and sincere than 
the visit paid by Madame Recamier and Chateau- 
briand to her home, of wliich Chateaubriand has 
told us. Fifteen years had passed since the death 
of Madame de Stael when he and Madame Reca- 
mier together made their pilgrimage to Coppet. 

The chateau was deserted, but memories every- 
where met Madame Recamier, and she communed 
with them silently, viewing those spots where 
Madame de Stael had played the piano, and talked, 
and written. With her lover at her side, she wan- 
dered out into the park and, not wishing to display 
her grief, she parted from him and went alone to 
the grave. The figure of the weeping Juliette and 
that of her melancholy companion at the gate, the 
mountains, the lake, and the " clouds of gold spread- 



234 MADAME BE STAEL. 

ing like a glory above a bier" present a picture 
impressive and memorable. It serves as a fitting 
and final monument to the genius of the most 
famous of famous French women, Madame de Stael. 



MADAME RfiCAMIER. 



Born in Lyons, Dec. 4, 1777. 
Died in Paris, May 11, 1849. 



"Beloved always and by all from the cradle to the grave." 

— Madame W Hautefenille. 

It was referred to tenderly, reverently as " the 
little cell." Without, the sun set over the hills of 
Sevres, and slender church spires touched the sky, 
and nuns walked in the quiet convent garden and 
pupils played beneath the shade of the acacia 
trees. Within there were books and pictures, a 
piano and a harp. Flower-pots stood in the win- 
dows and birds perched on the blinds. And over 
all was an atmosphere of mystery, of seclusion, of 
distinction. Those who climbed the stairs and 
crossed the threshold did so with a certain uplift 
of the spirit and a softening of voice. They came 
to the cell as to a sanctuary. 

One finds it difficult to apply to the little cell 
the name of salon. Yet such it was. Situated in 
the Abbaye-aux-Bois at a remote end of Paris, it 
could not have been more retired. Yet fashion 
found it out and made its way there. No spot 
was more visited. There Gerard came to show his 
pictures, Lamartine to read his "Meditations," 

235 



236 MADAME RECAMIER. 

and Delphine Gay to recite her verses. Of various 
talents, ranks, and parties, they assembled from all 
quarters. Conspicuous among them were Benjamin 
Constant and Ballanche, the philosopher, Matthieu 
de Montmorency, M. J. J. Ampere, Eugene Dela- 
croix, David d' Angers, Augustin Perier, Monsieur 
Bertin, and he who was crowned king over all, 
Chateaubriand. It was a little world, select and 
yet inclusive, that travelled daily to the Abbaye-aux- 
Bois. It mingled its life, its sparkle, with the 
shadows of the convent. And thus it may be 
said the little cell became a sort of half-waj^ house 
between the two extremes of worldliness and other 
worldliness. 

Of course there was the magnet, the dweller in 
the little cell, she who by the law of irresistible 
attraction drew society with her into her seclusion. 
She had already reached the period of the " much 
dreaded forties." Yet she was still " Juliette," 
the fair, the incomparable, the best beloved woman 
in France. 

Perhaps you went to see her prejudiced against 
her, incredulous of that charm of which you had 
heard so much. She was only a pretty coquette, 
you told yourself. She had done more harm than 
good in the world. She was admired merely be- 
cause she was the fashion. You were determined 
that she should not captivate you. You climbed 
the narrow stairway, you stood on the threshold 
of the little cell. A woman of dark, curling hair. 




MADAME RfCAMIER. 
From a painting by David in the Louvre. 



MADAME RECAMIEB. 237 

of brilliant eyes, and a wonderful radiance of com- 
plexion came toward you. She spoke your name, 
she greeted you. Immediately you felt that you 
had stepped within the circle of kindness and 
benevolence. She asked you a few questions not 
with politeness only, but with a real and undis- 
guised interest. You answered and she listened 
with a smile that said, " I understand." You 
grew eloquent, you outdid yourself, you talked 
as you had never talked before. You were pleased 
with yourself, with every one about you, and most 
of all with her against whom you had previously 
been so determined. Thus the work of conquest 
was accomplished. You came, you saw, but invari- 
ably it was she who conquered. 

It is at the Abbaye-aux-Bois that imagination 
likes best to place Madame Recamier. There, 
divested of youth and fortune and the first flush of 
her radiant beauty, she appears in a softened and 
poetic light. There, too, her goodness, unchanged 
by circumstance, rises to a height that has been 
termed " celestial." Never before has she occupied 
a place so important and so lofty. It is there that 
she seems most fitly to belong. 

Nevertheless, the period of her youth, of her fh'st 
conquests and early indiscretions is not without 
its interest and glamor. The record of that time 
reads very like a mytliical tale, a chapter of ro- 
mance. All the good fairies seem to have been 
present at her birth and to have bestowed upon her 



238 MADAME bSCAMIEE, 

gifts of fortune more plentiful even than her names. 
And her names certainly were not few. Jeanne 
Francois Julie Adelaide Bernard she was chris- 
tened. In thinking of her, however, in addressing 
her, it was only the name Julie that was remem- 
bered, Julie transformed into Juliette. It was the 
name that best suited her. She was most unmis- 
takably a Juliette, and a Juliette whose Romeo 
was never far away. 

Even in her pretty childhood she was not with- 
out her Romeo. In such rare glimpses as we have 
of her playing beside the bright waters of the Loire 
or climbing a tree to pick the grapes that grew in 
a neighbor's garden, we see her never unattended. 
There is always at her side some ardent young 
squire. 

Yet it was no youthful gallant who, while she 
was yet a child, won her hand in marriage. It was 
instead a middle-aged gentleman, a friend of her 
parents. Among the guests who were received by 
Monsieur and Madame Bernard in their house in 
Paris, whither, on monsieur's appointment as col- 
lector of customs, they had repaired, was a former 
citizen of theirs. Monsieur Rdcamier. He was a 
wealthy banker, affable and courtly. When he and 
Juliette were married he was forty-two and she 
fifteen. The tie between them was never anything 
but nominal and Ms attitude to her was always 
one of paternal fondness and indulgence. 

It was m the period of the Consulate that Madame 



MADAME BECAMIEB. 239 

Recamier, all-dazzling and all-enchanting, made her 
debut. She was immediately admired, surrounded, 
courted. There was danger in the world which 
she ejitered, a danger like fire. In her innocence 
and fearlessness she played with the fire, she rev- 
elled in the danger. Yet she never descended from 
her high altitude or came into too close contact with 
the flames. Among the gifts which the good fairies 
had bestowed upon her was a triumphant purity. 

We have spoken of the good fairies who visited 
Juliette. We must not forget a certain naughty 
little fairy. It is now time to mention her. It was 
she who gave to Juliette the spirit of coquetry. 
People are forever trying to excuse this coquetry. 
Madame de Stael called it "benevolent," and 
Sainte Beuve characterized it as " angelic." It had 
indeed, paradoxical as it may seem, something of 
a sweet and soothing character. Without a thought 
of harnung any one, the lovely Juliette shot her ar- 
rows ; they always hit, and when she saw she 
had inflicted wounds, she hastened to apply the 
balm of friendship. It was marvellous, the way in 
which she converted lovers into friends. She did 
not extinguish the passions she inspired. Rather 
she tempered them. She did not lead one from the 
tropics to the snows, but to that mild and temperate 
zone which she inhabited and which was not with- 
out its sunshine and its flowers. 

Thus Madame Recamier was " benevolent " in 
her coquetry, she was '^ angelic." Yet those who 



240 MADAME RECAMIEB. 

excuse her have to censure her as well. She could 
not heal all whom she wounded. Some, it is said, 
remained incurably hardened and embittered. And 
we are reminded of women, her unfortunate rivals, 
wives, and sweethearts neglected for her sake. 
They appear never to have accused her. Yet they 
must have had, many of them, their heartaches, 
which they endured in silence. 

All this reveals what Sainte Beuve calls "the 
dark side " in the character of Madame Recamier. 
It was a darkness which, in her later days, she her- 
self realized and regretted. She found the ex- 
planation and punishment in a fate that excluded 
her from all the close affections of domestic life. 
Married to a man who was her father rather than 
her husband, she lived what may be termed a soli- 
tary existence. No one was so admired, so loved, 
so feted as she, yet no one was more alone. Some- 
times she turned from her triumphs and her 
conquests to weep a few tears in longing for the 
happiness that was denied her. Ballanche, her 
loyal friend, who understood her so perfectly, was 
right in likening her to the phoenix. She " fed on 
perfumes " and " lived in the purest regions of the 
air, yet envied the humble fate of the white dove 
because she had a companion like herself." 

In the absence of home ties it was in friendship 
that Madame Recamier found her pleasure and 
consolation, one might almost say her vocation. It 
was to friendship that she devoted herself faith- 



MADAME BtCAMIER. 241 

fully, zealously, unselfishly. She was never known 
to abandon any one to whom she had once given 
her affection. Her loyalty, Madame de Stael said, 
was like " the spring in the desert." 

She was equally the friend of men and women, 
beloved by both. Madame de Stael, Madame de 
Genlis, Madame de Kriidner, Madame de S wet- 
chine, innumerable other mesdames, were extrava- 
gant in their praise of her. Moreover, it is a 
significant fact, that which has been observed 
before, that the wives of her admirers spoke no 
word of envy or detraction against her. Some 
even were on intimate terms with her. Madame 
de Montmorency, after her husband's death, gave 
her own letters from him to Madame Recamier, as a 
mark of her confidence and esteem. And Madame 
de Chateaubriand, whenever Madame Recamier 
was reported to be leaving town, hastened to her, 
imploring her to return as soon as possible. " What 
is to become of Monsieur de Chateaubriand ? " She 
would inquire anxiously. " What is he going to 
do if you stay away long ? " Thus these French 
wives accepted her, courted her. Posterity can 
only wonder — and smile. 

It was reasons of friendship that drew Madame 
Recamier into the opposition and brought upon her 
the ban of exile. Before the execution of the 
Duke d' Enghein, General Moreau's trial, and the 
persecution of Madame de Stael, she preserved a 
neutral attitude. Fouche, finding her beautiful 



242 MADAME RJ^CAMIEB. 

and charming and therefore powerful, conceived 
the idea of attaching her to the government. He 
wished to make her one of the maids of honor. 
Madame Recamier excused herself on the plea of 
her shyness and her love of independence. Her 
refusal angered Fouche. 

This, however, did not happen until after her 
meeting with Napoleon. The First Consul saw 
her at the house of his sister, Madame Bacciocchi, 
and admired her. She was then residing outside 
of Paris, at Clichy. Lucien, the brother of the 
Consul, was at that time foolishly, hopelessly, and 
passionately in love with her. He also was at 
Madame Bacciocchi's. He chanced to be standing 
at Madame Recamier's side. The Consul, who was 
in Lucien's secret, noticed them together. He 
passed them and, as he did so, looking meaningly 
at Madame Recamier, he took occasion to whisper 
audibly in his brother's ear, " And I, too, would like 
to go to Clichy." At dinner, the place at Napo- 
leon's left had been intended for Madame Reca- 
mier; but through a misunderstanding she did not 
take it. The Second Consul, Cambaceres, seated 
himself beside her. Napoleon, observing, declared 
loudly, " Ha ! Ha ! citizen Consul, always next to 
the most beautiful." After dinner he accosted 
Madame Recamier, " Why did you not take the 
seat next to me?" he inquired. "I should not 
have presumed," she replied. " It was your place," 
he told her. 



MADAME RECAMIEB. 243 

Thus, at first, Madame Recamier enjoyed Napo- 
leon's favor. Later, when she refused to serve at 
his court and, hy her friendship for the victims of 
his despotism, allied herself with the opposition, 
he turned his enmity against her. 

The ministers of his cabinet and visiting princes 
were obliged to make their calls on Madame 
Recamier stealthily so as to escape the emperor's 
displeasure. Once, when news was brought him 
that three of his ministers had encountered one 
another by chance at her house, he inquired with 
forbidding irony, "How long is it since the 
council have met at Madame Recamier's ? " And 
again, when she lost her fortune and all of France 
extended its sympathy to her, he remarked testily, 
"They could not have paid more honor to the 
widow of a marshal of France who had lost her 
husband on the field of battle." J 

All this occurred during the Empire. But at 
even an earlier date, under the Consulate, Madame 
Recamier had been made to feel Napoleon's power. 
Monsieur Bernard, her father, who was in the post- 
office department, was compromised. He was 
imprisoned at Napoleon's orders and threatened 
with death. Madame Recamier learned this, sud- 
denly, while she was entertaining friends at dinner. 
Madame Bacciocchi, the sister of Napoleon, was 
among the guests present. She advised Madame 
Recamier to see Fouche and promised that she her- 
self would do all she could for Monsieur Bernard. 



244 MADAME EECAMIER. 

Madame Recamier, therefore, attempted an inter- 
view with Fouche ; but he refused to receive her, 
for fear, he said, of being influenced by her in an 
affair of state. She then sought Madame Baccioc- 
chi at the Theatre-Fran^ais. Madame Bacciocchi 
was there, occupying a box with her sister Pauhne. 
There was a gentleman with them. The play was 
Achilles and the actor Lafont. Madame Recamier, 
troubled and agitated, entered the box. The two 
sisters seemed not to notice her suffering. 
Madame Bacciocchi observed indifferently that she 
wished to remain until the end of the tragedy, and 
Pauline, absorbed in the play, remarked that she 
thought the helmet very unbecoming to Lafont. 
At this the gentleman. General Bernadotte it was, 
came forward. He offered to escort Madame 
Recamier to her home and then, himself, to see 
Napoleon. Thus began Bernadotte's attachment 
to Madame Recamier. He interceded for her, and 
saved her father, received her very gracious grati- 
tude and became thenceforth one of her most 
devoted Romeos. 

This instance was Madame Recamier's first ex- 
perience of Napoleon's power. Her final experience 
was her exile. Upon the suppression of Madame 
de Stael's ''Germany," Madame Recamier deter- 
mined to go to Coppet and pay a visit of sympathy 
to her sorrowing friend. She was counselled not 
to go. She was told that she could do her friend 
no good and that she would only be bringing mis- 



Madame becamier 245 

fortune upon herself. But she persisted. What 
she intended doing was only natural and right, she 
said, and whatever might be the consequences she 
was resolved not to refuse to a persecuted woman 
this mark of respect and affection. She went to 
Coppet and embraced Madame de Stael and was, 
in consequence, banished to a distance of forty 
leagues from Paris. 

Much has been said in contempt of the friend- 
ship of women. Yet here is one that defies carping 
criticism. Madame Recamier's love for Madame 
de Stael, her unselfish devotion to her, form one 
of the pleasantest chapters in the lives of both. 
Madame de Stael, on her part, was equally loving. 
She delighted to see her beautiful Juliette 
admired and courted, receiving as she declared 
"the worship of the whole of Europe." She 
regarded her as the chief attraction at Coppet 
during those seasons when Madame Recamier made 
her visits there. "I cannot conceive of either 
country or home life without you," she once told 
her. " Everything falls to pieces when you leave. 
You are the sweet and tranquil centre of our 
home." 

Perhaps no chapter in Madame Kecamier's life 
is more pleasant, more gratifying, than this one 
devoted to her friendship with Madame de Stael. 
But there are other chapters given to other friends 
which have their individual importance and charm. 
We might say of these other chapters that they are 



246 MADAME BECAMIEB. 

romantic chapters. One is found entitled Lucien, 
another Bernadotte. Then follow the Montmo- 
rencies, Prince Augustus of Prussia, Ballanche, 
Canova, Benjamin Constant, and last and chiefest, 
Chateaubriand. 

We have already had a peep into those that treat 
of Lucien and Bernadotte. Next in order are the 
Montmorencies, the cousins Matthieu and Adrien. 
Of these, Matthieu was the saint. He was Madame 
Recamier's mentor. He reproved her for her friv- 
olity and love of admiration and tried to direct her 
thoughts to more serious things and especially to 
heaven. For his sake she gave an hour every day 
to meditation and religious reading. Adrien, who 
became Duke de Laval, was quite different from 
Matthieu. He was less of a saint and more of a 
wit. He, his father, and later his son, all loved 
Madame Recamier. Thus three generations ren- 
dered homage to her. Adrien used frequently to 
meet his son at Madame Recamier's. On such 
occasions, the father and son, rivals per for ee^ each 
endeavored, as the vulgar saying is, '' to sit the 
other out." It was the younger man wlio invari- 
ably persisted longest, and the duke wrathfully 
took his departure. Nevertheless, the humor of 
the situation did not escape the duke, and he wrote 
of it very pleasantly to Madame Recamier : " My 
son is enchanted with you. You know whether or 
not I am. It is the same with all the Montmoren- 
cies. We do not die, but we are all of us wounded." 



MADAME BECAMIER. 247 

Of all the romantic chapters in the life of Mad- 
ame Recamier assuredly the one of most poetic 
glamor is that with Prince Augustus of Prussia. 
It had for its setting Coppet, the beautiful shores 
of Lake Geneva, and the mystic grandeur of Mt. 
Blanc, and for its hero a brave and handsome young 
prince. Madame Recamier was twenty-five and 
the prince twenty-four when they met at Coppet. 
He was immediately her captive, " a royal prisoner." 
His boyish ardor, his earnestness, his perfect sin- 
cerity touched Madame Recamier. And the glory 
of his name and rank and valorous deeds appealed 
to her imagination. The prince, who was a Protes- 
tant, proposed to Madame Recamier that she should 
break a tie that had never been anything but nom- 
inal and marry him. Madame Recamier wavered. 
She wrote to her husband asking for a divorce. She 
received in answer a tender, fatherly, dignified letter. 
It aroused Madame Recamier's compassion for her 
husband. She pictured him old and stripped of his 
fortune, lonely and sad. She determined not to 
desert him. But she did not tell Prince Augustus 
of her decision. She could not bear to deprive him 
of all hope and allowed matters with him to drift 
on in sweet and poetic uncertainty. He left her 
dreaming of the happiness of a life with her, believ- 
ing that it might be realized. She let him go thus, 
thinking that time and absence would be his best 
helps to an understanding of the truth. It was a 
naive philosophy and one that has called forth much 



248 MADAME BECAMIEE. 

criticism of Madame Recamier. One wonders if 
frankness would not have been more salutary in 
the end. 

Shortly after her return to Paris, she sent the 
prince her portrait. He sat for hours, he told her, 
looking at " the enchanting picture " and thinking 
that no fate could be comparable to that of the man 
whom she would love. He did not part with the 
portrait until his death, many years after. Madame 
Recamier had also presented him with a ring. 
Three months before his death he wrote concerning 
it : " The ring that you gave me I shall carry with 
me to the tomb." 

After the chapter with Prince Augustus, the next 
in sequence is one with Ballanche. Madame Re- 
camier met him at Lyons, whither she went in her 
exile. He used to call every evening and chat with 
her tete-a-tete. They talked of his work and of 
ethical and literary subjects. Shy and ugly, the 
philosopher had never met with such tact and 
kindness as that which he received from Madame 
Recamier. He was full of gratitude and admira- 
tion. He became to her an ideal sort of elder 
brother, loving her, caring for her, following her 
everywhere with a watchful devotion. It was he 
who advised her to translate Petrarch. More to 
please him than from any belief in her own ability 
she began the work. It was laid aside and taken 
up again many times. She died before it was 
completed. 



MADAME EEC AM IE R. 249 

When Madame Recamier left Lyons for Italy, 
Ballanche visited her there. Canova made a third 
in their little excursions. And with Canova we 
enter upon another romantic chapter. Upon her 
arrival at Rome one of Madame Recamier's first 
calls had been at the sculptor's studio. He, who 
was a passionate lover of beauty, did not fail to 
honor it in Madame Recamier. Daring the sum- 
mer months, when residence in the city was un- 
healthful, Madame Recamier became Canova's 
guest at Albano. There her room looked out 
upon the Campagna, Pompey's villa surrounded by 
trees, a vast plain of waving green grass, and, as 
a limit of all this, the sea. Every morning she 
walked on the shores of Lake Albano, and every 
Sunday at high mass and vespers she played the 
organ in the little church. She was la belissima 
Zulieta of the place. While she was in Italy 
Madame Recamier visited Naples. When she 
returned to Rome, Canova met her with a cordial 
and affectionate greeting and with an air of mystery 
as well. He led her to his private " atelier " and 
drew aside a curtain. '' See if I have not thought 
of you," he said. Two clay busts were disclosed, 
both of Madame Recamier, one veiled and the other 
unveiled. 

At the very first of the new era of the Restora- 
tion Madame Recamier left Italy and returned to 
Paris. It is to this period (1814-15) that the 
chapter that has to do with Benjamin Constant 



250 MADAME RECAMIEB. 

belongs. The king and queen of Italy, Monsieur 
and Madame Murat, friends of Madame Recamier, 
desired a defender of their rights in the congress 
that was to determine the new balance of power. 
Madame Recamier bethought her of Benjamin 
Constant and determined to interview Mm in 
behalf of the Murats. He was already something 
of an old friend. She had known him for ten 
years. She went, intent to please him, and she 
succeeded only too well. The interview was the 
beginning of a foolish passion on the part of Benja- 
min Constant which never received the least en- 
couragement. All through the winter, however, 
for reasons of policy, Madame Recamier saw much 
of " the publicist." He and she both of them 
occasionally attended Madame Kriidner's semi- 
social, semi-spiritualistic meetings. Madame 
Recamier's arrival at these gatherings was thought 
to divert attention from the solemn business of the 
occasion. Therefore Constant was requested to 
address her on this score. The note that resulted 
is an excellent example of the brilliant, aerial mind 
of her volatile lover. " Madame Kriidner has just 
charged me with an embarrassing commission," he 
wrote. "She begs that you will make your ap- 
pearance with as few charms as possible. She 
says that you dazzle everybody and consequently 
all hearts are disturbed, attention is impossible. 
You cannot divest yourself of your beauty; but, 
prithee, do not enhance it." 



MADAME r:^camieb. 251 

With the exit of Benjamin Constant we approach 
the final romantic chapter, that of which Chateau- 
briand is the hero. Madame Recamier met 
Chateaubriand first at the house of Madame de 
Stael and again several years after, near the time 
of Madame de Stael's death, at her house again. 
Her intimate friendship with him, however, was 
not until the days at the Abbaye-aux-Bois. 

It was during the last years of the Restoration 
that Madame Recamier met with her second reverse 
of fortune and in consequence removed to the little 
cell. She lived there for six months. At the end 
of that time the nuns ceded to her a suite of rooms 
on the first floor of the Abbaye, and there she 
remained until very shortly before her death. 

During the time of her residence at the Abbaye- 
aux-Bois Madame Recamier ceased to be young. 
She did not grow old; in spite of the years she 
attained, she never grew old. Her heart was per- 
petually young, perpetually beautiful. And 
though the passage of time divested her somewhat 
of her charms, she submitted herself so gracefully 
that she was permitted to retain more than she lost. 
The smile was always the same, and the graceful 
carriage, and the sweet, charitable manner. Her 
coquetry, too, that desire, that power of pleasing, 
remained with her. It had developed since the 
days of her youthful flirtations. It never wounded 
now — it only healed. It consisted in recognizing 
and honoring every talent, every virtue, every dis- 



252 MADAME BBCAMIEB. 

tinctioii and in addressing itself equally to the most 
obscure and the most celebrated. It was the soul 
of kindness and courtesy. 

Of the influence that Madame Recamiei' exerted 
at this time Sainte Beuve, who knew her, has 
written. Hers was a "benevolent" power, he 
said. She brought " the art of friendship " to 
perfection. She disarmed anger, sweetened bitter- 
ness, and banished rudeness. She instituted the 
reign of compassion and indulgence. She doctored 
the faults and the weaknesses of her friends as she 
would have doctored their physical infirmities. 
She was, Sainte Beuve concludes, a veritable 
" Sister of Charity." 

She admitted many to her fireside and to her 
heart. She was general in her friendship. Yet 
she was special, too. And Chateaubriand was her 
specialty. For him she remained in the city and 
surrounded herself with friends. For him she 
devised musical entertainments, readings of his 
own works, anything that would amuse him. She 
brought admirers to his feet, smiles to his melan- 
choly countenance. She watched his face and 
anticipated his every wish. She flattered his 
humors, she lightened his gloom, she filled his life. 

Every day at half past two she received him in 
her little salon. Together they drank tea and 
enjoyed an hour of tete-a-tete. 

The years went by. Monsieur de Chateaubriand 
met with an accident that crippled him for life. In 



MADAME RECAMIER. 253 

his journeys to the Abbaye-aux-Bois he had to be 
carried to and from his carriage. Madame Reca- 
mier grew ill, her eyesight failed. Yet they con- 
tinued to meet at the old hour. It had become a 
necessity with them. 

When his wife died, Monsieur de Chateaubriand 
asked Madame Recamier, who had long been a 
widow, to honor his name by consenting to bear it. 
But Madame Recamier shook her head. " Let us 
change nothing in so perfect an affection," she 
said. And to her friends she remarked, "If he 
were married to me, Monsieur de Chateaubriand 
would miss his morning call." 

Thus the final chapter draws to an end, and it is 
time to close the volume. A last look shows us 
Madame Recamier in her cloistered retreat. Let 
us take leave of her there in the shadow of the 
convent, surrounded by the friends who loved her. 
Her life had been long, but her star had not grown 
dim. 



MADAME VALMORE. 



Born at Douai, June 20, 1789. 
Died in Paris. June 23, 1859. 



' Sweet spirit witli the golden voice." — Brizeux. 

Amid the dust and defilement of the city this 
bird of plaintive note built her nest. On dizzy 
heights, now the fifth floor, now the sixth floor of 
some humble lodging-house, it swung. The storms 
visited it and buffetted it and overturned it, and 
another bough as dry and leafless as the former 
was sought, and the nest was built again. Yet the 
sunshine found it, too ; and the cries of the unfortu- 
nate were lifted to it, never in vain. 

Within the little nest Madame Valmore worked 
and loved and prayed. And she sang, too, repeat- 
edly, inevitably. She sang of sad, far-away memo- 
ries, of present needs and present pains, of the 
prisoner, the exile, the bereft. She sang with tears 
in her voice and grief in her heart. " She was," 
Sainte Beuve declares, "the Mater Dolorosa of 
poetry." 

She did not live alone in the little nest. She 
had with her her family, four dear companions, — 
Valmore, her husband, who was honor itself, but 
who vainly sought for honest and congenial em- 
ployment, and three children, Hippolyte, her son, 

254 




MADAME VALMORE. 
From an etching by Monzies. 



MADAME VALMORE. 255 

and Undine and Inez, her daughters. Hippolyte 
was a good boy. His fine mind and his straight- 
forward nature were a great comfort to his mother. 
Inez, the baby of the family, was sensitive and sh}^, 
inclined to melancholy. "No child," her mother 
said, *' ever needed so much caressing." She was 
frail, too, a constant anxiety to her mother. Sun- 
shine, fresh air, comfort, pleasure, were what she 
needed. But though her mother worked early and 
late, and longed with all her heart to buy them for 
her, they could not be bought. The child grew 
every year nore delicate and spirit-like. Undine 
was only occasionally an inmate of the little nest. 
She was assistant teacher in a boarding-school at 
Chaillot, and could pay only fleeting visits to her 
home. It was as '^ our dear learned lady " that 
Madame Valmore spoke of her. She came and 
went before her mother's eyes like some fair vision 
not wholly realized and understood. Small of 
stature, with soft blue eyes, regular features, and a 
sweet winning smile, there was, it has been stated, 
something angelic in her appearance. She was a 
poet like her mother, and lived in a world of dreams 
and pure and lofty thoughts. But she was 
reserved and undemonstrative. Her reticence 
troubled her mother. Madame Valmore, who 
opened her heart so freely to all who loved her, 
experienced an affectionate alarm when her 
daughter's confidence was withheld from her. But 
she did not question Undine unduly. She re- 



256 MADAME VALMOBE. 

spected her silence. She was always considerate 
of the wishes of her children. " These sensitive 
young souls need either happiness or the dream 
of it," she said, " and should be fed from the first 
on unalterable indulgence." 

For herself she had ceased to ask for happiness. 
Sometimes, it is true, she sighed for rest and the 
modest luxury of an apartment on the second floor. 
But oftener she spoke of her supports and com- 
forts, — the daylight, faith in God, the love of her 
dear ones, and the hope of seeing again those who 
had "gone before her." The truth was she no 
longer expected or desired happiness save that of 
others. 

Her days from eight o'clock till midnight were 
filled with work, letters, housekeeping, sewing, 
visitors. She made her life, she declared, as she 
sewed, patiently, "stitch by stitch." She did what 
she could for the maintenance of her poor little 
home. She labored "with all her might." Yet 
when they came asking her to write stories for 
papers and periodicals, she shook her head. " I 
cannot write," she said. " My thoughts are too 
serious, my heart too full. I always write from 
the heart, and mine bleeds too much for pretty, 
childish fancies." 

People, charmed by her plaintive bird-notes, 
climbed to her attic heights to visit her. They 
came, litterateurs, and now and then a stray prince 
or princess. Madame Valmore received them with 



MADAME VALMOEE. 257 

ease and grace and hospitality. She surrounded 
herself with an artistic poverty, made light of her 
too apparent needs, and hid her sorrows under a 
gallant bearing. She who was so modest and sen- 
sitive a poet was also proud and brave. 

The rich man came to tell her of his troubles. 
The house that he was building was to have cost a 
hundred thousand francs, he said, and the plans 
were mounting up to twice that sum, which, to- 
gether with the cost of his son's education, was 
enough to drive him mad. Madame was forced to 
pity him. Yet she smiled to herself ironically as 
she listened. " What can you say to such a child 
of fortune ? " she inquired of a friend. "That you 
have but two chemises and no tablecloths ? " He 
would reply, " Ah, how fortunate you are ! Then 
you will not think of building." 

Two noble ladies came to take her for a drive. 
They cast a glance of scrutiny about the narrow 
quarters. "Madame Valmore has everything so 
pretty around her," they remarked. And Madame 
Valmore, while she thanked them for their compli- 
ment, thought of the one franc lying in her bureau 
drawer, which was all she had saved toward the 
monthly wages of " the fierce Victoire." She could 
not go with the great ladies to drive. She must 
stay at home and work. But for excuse she only 
said that she was ill. Thus, as in the days of her 
dramatic career, she hid her tears beneath the 
jester's mask. 



258 MADAME VALMORE. 

Her lot was cast in the shadow, away from the 
pleasures of the world. She did not know hap- 
piness. She had never known it. Of herself she 
said that she " slipped sorrowfully into the world." 

There is something very sad, very sweet, and 
very affecting about Madame Valmore's first mem- 
ories and her early home at Douai. In that town, 
so quaint, so historic, so picturesque, so permeated 
with Flemish and Spanish influences, while the bells 
were ringing in the Revolution, near to a grave- 
yard and a ruined church on the Rue Notre Dame, 
Madame Valmore was born. She played among 
the tombstones and the fallen statues of the saints ; 
she gathered the roses that grew wild along the 
ancient aisles and cloisters ; she gazed upon the pic- 
ture of the Christ, and it seemed to her that the 
eyes looked down on her in pity. 

The little Marceline, as she was called, could 
not remember ever haying been anything but poor. 
Her brother Felix, however, and her sisters Cecile 
and Eugenie, who were older than she, were able 
to think back to a time before the Revolution, 
when the church was still standing and when there 
was plenty in their home. Then there father had 
been an armorial painter. But in the days that 
followed, when royalty was swept away, his occu- 
pation vanished. To be sure there were wealthy 
Protestant uncles in Flanders who promised busi- 
ness opportunities and preferment if they would 
but change their faith. But the family in the Rue 



MADAME VALMOBE. 259 

Notre Dame were devout Catholics. They 
remained loyal and poor. 

When Marceline was ten years old she went 
with her mother to Guadeloupe, whither they had 
been invited by a relative who had amassed a for- 
tune. They had not been there long when the 
mother caught the yellow fever, which was raging 
there, and died. The relative was already dead of 
the fever. Marceline was quite alone. She was 
befriended by the wife of a ship owner, Madame 
Geudon. When she was fourteen she took pas- 
sage on a ship of Madame Geudon's husband that 
was sailing for France. On her way she encount- 
ered a storm. She persuaded the sailors to let her 
remain on deck while it was raging, and, tightly 
wrapped in the shrouds, she watched the battle 
with the waves. The fierce beauty of the scene 
appealed to her dramatic and poetic nature. She 
faced it with that same dauntless spirit with which 
vshe was to face all the later conflicts of her 
life. 

On her landing in France, Marceline was met 
with the news that her family was destitute. It 
was then that she became an actress. Young, 
small, innocent-looking, without mannerisms or 
affectations, quick, simple, and intelligent, she 
stepped naturally into the ingenuous parts (ingenu- 
ites). She attracted considerable attention in the 
little stage world, and Gretry, of the Opera Com- 
ique, seeing her and observing the proud humility 



260 MADAME VALMORE. 

with which she bore herself, referred to her always 
as "the little dethroned queen." 

The little dethroned queen dwelt in a castle close 
against the sky, an apartment under the roof. Her 
only retainer was a humble dressing maid of the 
same theatre as herself, and her friend as well. 
She studied much and ate little. One day, after 
too long a fast, she was found in a faint at the 
foot of her stairway. Poor child, she was experi- 
encing suffering in a way that refined her art, but 
left its blight forever on her life. 

However, she was at that youthful age when 
even rags are becoming, and when the heart, in 
spite of its aching, will rejoice. She had her laughs 
as well as her cries. She and her poor companion, 
the dressing maid, living sparingly like two little 
birds, used to share their few crumbs with an occa- 
sional visitor. Once, when all the crumbs were 
gone, a big man with a very big appetite came to 
call. He talked eloquently of art, music, the 
drama, until he was tired, but no dinner appeared. 
At length, with the piteous gesture of a man faint 
for food, " Oh, my children," he cried. " No mat- 
ter what! Anything! A large piece of bread! 
That surely cannot incommode you ! " 

From Rouen to Brussels Mademoiselle Marce- 
line travelled, to the Odeon, and back again to 
Brussels and Rouen. Her wandering habit, which 
was formed not of desire, but of necessity, began 
in this season of her theatrical career. She made 



MABAME VALMOBE, 261 

various debuts in the parts of " Julie " in the " Pot 
de Fleurs " and " Eulalie " in " Misanthropy and 
Repentance." At tlie Opera Comique she sang 
with a thrilling, sympathetic voice. She was 
especially successful in the pathetic parts. She 
brought tears to many eyes, even to the eyes of a 
certain malicious critic who went to ridicule and 
remained to applaud. 

She was also effective in the comic parts. But 
these were an effort to her. It was difficult for 
her to repress all feeling and to become merely a 
pretty, smiling puppet. While she danced and 
sang and performed her amusing little antics, she 
lamented thus to herself : 

" In the vain shows where wit doth win applause, 
Hushed lies the heart and hidden : 
To please becomes the first of laws; 
To love is aye forbidden." 

She began to weary of the " jester's crown," and 
to desire, as she expressed it, " the sweet names of 
wife and mother." In April, 181T, when she was 
twenty years old, she married Monsieur Valmore, 
who was of the same theatre as herself, and who 
loved her deeply and ardently. For a few years 
she and her husband acted together. Then she 
retired from the stage. 

Meanwhile she had lost her singing voice. But 
she still heard the music in her brain. It was 
" turning to poetry within her," Sainte Beuve ex- 



262 MADAME VALMORE. 

plains. In 1817 she published her first volume of 
verse. A second and third edition appeared in 
1820 and 1822. They aroused interest and ad- 
miration. It was not until 1824-27, however, that 
her reputation as a poet was established. From 
that time on she wrote with increasing skill and 
with a full development of her warm, sympathetic 
genius. Sensibility was her domain. Her strains 
were always sad and tender. '^She had," said 
Michelet, '' the gift of tears, that gift which smites 
the rock and dissipates the drought of the soul." 
And Sophie Gay, quoting some of her verse, de- 
clared that it possessed the melancholy charm 
which Monsieur de Segur called the "luxury of 
grief." There was nothing original, nothing start- 
ling in the poetry of Madame Valmore. It was just 
sweet and delicate and feminine, as frank and artless 
as the poet who wrote it. In truth it was herself. 

Madame Valmore and her poetry were one. But 
her life, her exterior life that is, was very different. 
It was a long wandering from lodging-house to 
lodging-house, a hard fight for the necessities of 
existence. A pension had been granted her. She, 
sensitive and proud, had accepted it with extreme 
reluctance. She spent much of it in charity, seek- 
ing always "to justify and purify" the money in 
her eyes. The pension relieved the situation, but 
after years of forced inactivity, when arrears had 
accumulated into debts, total recovery was not 
possible. The struggle still continued. 



MADAME VALMORE. 263 

Madame Valmore noted with pain the effects of 
the struggle on herself and her family. " The 
rigors of fate too much prolonged," she said, " are 
as fatal to the mind as too much luxury. When 
it becomes necessary to work hard in order to 
escape absolute indigence, the wings of the soul 
are folded, and soaring is postponed to a future day." 

Money difficulties were not Madame Valmore's 
only trouble. One by one she lost her dear ones, 
her brother, her sisters, her friends. At length 
death struck at her children, at little Inez grown 
to womanhood, and later at Undine, the beautiful 
and good and learned. Then in anguish she cried, 
" It is frightful, frightful to see the young die and 
to be left behind ! " She felt lost, abandoned. For 
the first time her religion, her childlike faith, fal- 
tered. " I cannot always feel the angels sustaining 
me," she said. 

But this was only for a moment. She, who was 
so afflicted, never despaired. The angels returned 
to her. She prayed to them as she prayed to God 
and the Virgin. Hers was an individual, an inde- 
pendent faith. She never attended service. She 
visited church only when it was empty. She 
desired no priest to intercede for her. She spoke 
direct to heaven. For this she was criticised. Yet 
no one was more intensely religious. She was 
always in the presence of God, Christ, the Virgin, 
and the dear departed. They were more real to her, 
more near to her than the affairs of the world. 



264 MADAME VALMORE. 

Thus she lived close to Heaven, and caught some- 
what the spirit of that neighborhood. She brought 
into her own atmosphere, so dingy and dusty and 
gray, a bit of the blue. What little money she had 
she shared with those who had less, — with her 
brother in the hospital at Douai and her sisters at 
Rouen, or some hungry actor or shivering poet. 
And when she had no money to bestow she was 
always ready with consoling words. She who had 
experienced so much suffering knew well how to 
compassionate the suffering of others. It was a 
theory of hers that the poor should help one 
another and ask no favors of the rich. " The rich 
cannot understand," she said. " Let us not speak 
of them except to rejoice that they do not suffer as 
we do." " Give until death," was her motto, and 
she gave freely and at all times of her purse, of her 
sympathy, and of her gift of song. 

Meanwhile, she continued her wanderings, but 
found now and then in the midst of the desert an 
occasional oasis. Such was her visit to Milan. 
Her husband had been summoned thither as one of 
a troupe engaged to perform for the entertainment 
of the Emperor Ferdinand. Madame Valmore and 
her two daughters went with him. The engage- 
ment amounted to nothing, but the little family 
were afforded a glimpse of a romantic realm. The 
sunshine of the South brought a note of gladness to 
the sad voice of Madame Valmore. She sat beside 
her casement, whose only curtain was a verdant 



MADAME VALMOBE. 265 

plane-tree, and with her family, " alone, in poor dis- 
guise," as she expressed it, she roamed " the grand 
Italian land." She breathed a warmth, she beheld 
a beauty that were free to all. Again, shortly after 
her journey to Italy and during the first of her res- 
idence in Paris, Madame Valmore visited Flanders 
with her husband. She enjoyed the merry Flemish 
holidays, and frequented the art galleries where 
black-robed virgins and portraits by Rubens and 
the head of the Laocoon filled her with an " inex- 
pressible adoration." 

On all such occasions Madame Yalmore's heart 
responded ardently to the influence of culture and 
refinement. Her imagination was easily roused, 
her mind quickly diverted. "Oh," she exclaimed, 
" what a happy place this world is to one who pos- 
sesses the faculty of admiration, at once the hum- 
blest and the proudest of all. It consoles one for 
all sorts of miseries, and gives wings to poverty, 
enabling it to soar above disdainful wealth ! " 

All that she needed, this woman of exquisite 
taste and sentiment, was a little space for reflection 
and study. Yet this was seldom granted. "I 
should have revelled in a study of the poets and 
poetry," she once said, " but have been fain to be 
content with dreaming of this as of the other good 
things of the world." And when at last the rare 
opportunity was offered and she was permitted to 
read, it was with an admiration so profound that 
she quite forgot herself, or if for a moment she 



266 MADAME VALMOBE. 

remembered her own talent, it was to sa}^, "The 
more I read the less I dare to write. I am smitten 
with terror. I am like a glow-worm in the sun." 

She was very modest as to her own productions 
and grateful for honest criticism. Monsieur 
Latour, poet and professor, was her friend, and a 
literary adviser kind and affectionate. She ap- 
pealed to him with characteristic humility, asking 
for light. He pointed out certain faults of expres- 
sion, of carelessness and weakness, but found 
much to love and praise and pity in her verse. 
She thanked him, and by her sincerity, as she said, 
merited " that rarest of favors, truth." 

Monsieur Latour was not the only denizen from 
the literary world who honored Madame Valmore 
with his friendship. There was also Lamartine, 
with whom she exchanged complimentary verses 
and letters ; and Raspail, whom she hailed as " Dear 
Socrates," " Charming Stoic," and to whom she 
dedicated her pathetic plea, " Les Prisones et Les 
Pri^res ;" and Brizeux, the Breton Virgil, of so 
strange, so flighty, so evanescent a character. Then, 
too, Beranger, Hugo, Vigny, Alexander Dumas, all 
paid their respects to her at one time or another. 
Though her star shone so obscurely and with so 
mild a light, it did not pass unseen, but was 
recognized and awarded its meed of appreciation 
and admiration. 

Her husband, too, after long years of waiting 
and earnest endeavor, found his place at last. He 



MADAME VALMORE. 267 

obtained, in September, 1852, honorable and con- 
genial employment as editor of " The Catalogue " 
in the Imperial Library. His appointment brought 
" sacred content," it is said, to the members of the 
humble household so perpetually and so sorely 
tried. 

Already there had been a slight lifting of the 
clouds, a temporary period of cessation from suffer- 
ing, of happiness and rejoicing. In January, 1851, 
Undine was married. She went to the country, to 
the estate of her husband, Monsieur Langlais, 
at Saint Denis D'Anjon, and Madame Valmore 
visited her there. Then, for the first time, this 
mother and daughter enjoyed peace and freedom. 
It was pleasant to live, they found, away from the 
ringing of bells and literary and political wran- 
gling. They rode on donkeys, they strayed pur- 
poselessly through the meadoAvs, they translated 
Horace, they gathered fruits and flowers, they 
breathed the scent of growing things and listened 
to talk of the vintage, the wheat crop, and " hens 
who lay continually." For the first time they ex- 
perienced protracted sunshine and an easy life. 

Yet, as the months passed, it became evident 
that these benefits had come to Undine too late. 
Madame Valmore regarded her child anxiously and 
apprehensively. "Her countenance is so change- 
ful," she wrote to Hippolyte. " She has so strange 
an appetite and such a horror of walking. She is 
so shy even in her confidences. It is as if her 



268 MADAME VALMORE. 

heart were the home of thousands of birds who do 
not sing in concert, but fear and shun one another. 
She is always gentle, but so easily agitated." 

It was the poison taking effect. The sunshine 
of a few months could not heal a weakness that 
was the result of the toil and privation of years. 
Her mother's watchful care, her husband's love, 
her baby's sweet dependence could not keep her. 
She died in February, 1853. 

It was then that Madame Valmore entered the 
region of impenetrable shadows and became in 
very truth the "Mother of Sorrows." " I dare not 
write," she said, " for I cannot lie, and the tale is 
too sad to tell." Nevertheless, from out the dark- 
ness her voice still sounded submissive, clear, and 
undespairing, She had even yet at her command 
words of comfort and cheer. If she was the Mater 
Dolorosa of poetry, she was, to quote Raspail, its 
" good fairy," too. The tenth muse, he called her, 
the muse of virtue. 

She who had always been so poor left, when she 
died, no fortune to her son. She could bequeath 
him only a name. Yet many fortunes, said one 
who knew her, might be given in exchange for 
such a patent of nobility. 

Her tale, sad as the one she could not tell, has yet 
the breath of hope and consolation. It is a mes- 
sage, a word of wisdom, to all who suffer and must 
not despair. 



MADAME DE RfiMUSAT. 



Born at Paris, Jan. 5, 1780. 
Died at Lille, Dec. 16, 1821. 



*' She was probably the woman (and consider what a blending 
of seriousness and grace this circumstance implies) with whom 
Napoleon and Talleyrand liked best to talk." — Sainte Beuve. 

The court was at Fontainebleau. There were 
gathered princes, electors, marshals, chamberlains, 
foreigners of distinction. Fear of the emperor 
and strict etiquette kept them cautious and 
restrained. One could not say that there was 
gaiety among them. Yet none of the symbols of 
gaiety were lacking. People danced, they played 
at chess and cards, they acted tragedies, they sang, 
they feasted, they hunted, they smiled, they 
laughed, they talked. Now and then, even, they 
abandoned themselves to a game of blind-man's- 
buff. They sought to assume the lightness and 
carelessness of children. 

Among the illustrious personages who comprised 
this court was a woman who had attained a repu- 
tation for cleverness. She was known as Madame 
de Kemusat. Early in her court life she had 
spoken the name Shakspeare ; she had defended the 
English author to Napoleon. Bonaparte had 

269 



270 MADAME DE REMUSAT. 

turned upon her with a start. " Diable ! " he had 
exclaimed. "You are a savant!" The listening 
audience had regarded her curiously. Thereafter 
she had talked only idle talk or she had held her 
tongue. Yet the name stuck. She was a " savant." 
Madame herself was amused at her title. She 
thought she had won her reputation rather too 
easily. 

She was not a beauty, this clever woman, but she 
was attractive. A pen and ink portrait of the time, 
done by an able hand, presents her to us. Her 
figure, it is said, was good ; her carriage graceful 
and unaffected. Her features were not at all 
remarkable, but her eyes, her lips, her teeth were 
beautiful. Moreover, she was blessed with dim- 
ples. Her smile, therefore, was " sweet " and " arch." 
Her face expressed " tenderness, vivacity, quick per- 
ception, a vivid imagination, and exquisite sensi- 
bility." Such, then, was Madame de Remusat as 
she appeared at court, Madame de Remusat, Lady- 
in-waiting to the Empress Josephine. 

One evening Madame de Remusat sat at the 
piano in the palace of Fontainebleau playing Italian 
dance music. The whole court passed before her. 
She knew them all — knew them even to their 
interests, their passions, their intrigues, and their 
weaknesses. They seemed happy, free from 
responsibility and anxiety. Yet, she meditated, 
they had each in turn a favor to ask, justice to 
demand, or some business of importance to trans- 



MADAME BE BEMUSAT. 271 

act. They were behaving like children, while, in 
reality, their desires and their wills were those of 
men. They dared not show themselves. They 
were reduced to insignificance. 

These thoughts were in her mind when, a 
moment later, the dance at an end, she rose from 
her seat at the piano. Talleyrand was at her side. 
The clever diplomat admired this clever woman 
and liked to find himself in her society. He spoke 
to her of some matter of importance in which he 
was intimately concerned. He spoke with his 
usual calm indifference. Madame de Remusat 
regarded him a moment in silence. Then her 
thoughts demanding expression, and her face elo- 
quent with her own earnestness, she exclaimed, 
" Mon Dieu, how is it possible that you can live 
and work without experiencing any emotion ? " 

He smiled upon her, and began to mock her as 
he mocked every one. " Ah, what a woman you 
are, and how young !" he observed. 

Once this might have made her angry. Now 
his ridicule only amused her. She pitied more 
than she censured his hardness of heart. He had 
told her of his unfortunate youth, and she, who 
was so happy in her private life, was full of sym- 
pathy for him. Now and then, moreover, she had 
touched a chord in his nature, which told her that 
he had a soul, though it slept. 

" Oh," she declared, " what a pity it is that you 
have to take such pains to spoil yourself. I can- 



272 MABAMK DE REMUS AT. 

not help believing that the real you is better than 
you are.'' 

Later in the evening it was Napoleon who was 
at Madame cle Remusat's side. He had recently re- 
stored lands and revenue to some Royalist friends 
of hers, two young women whose father had been 
a duke in the reign of Louis XVI. Madame 
assured Bonaparte of their gratitude. 

The emperor sneered. " Ouf ! " he declared. 
" Gratitude ! That is a poetic word. It has no 
meaning in the political world. These friends of 
yours, who are grateful to me to-day, would rejoice 
to-morrow if some Royalist should assassinate me." 

Madame opened her eyes, surprised, incredu- 
lous. 

Napoleon observed her expression. "You are 
young," he said. " You don't know what party 
hatred is. It is like a pair of spectacles — one sees 
everybody, every opinion, every sentiment through 
the glass of one's own passions." 

Madame pondered a moment. She was one of 
the few ladies of the court who comprehended the 
conversation of the emperor and dared to answer 
him in something more than monosyllables. " But," 
she demurred, " if you deny the existence of grati- 
tude in your universe, for what reason do you 
seek to win applause ? Why do you spend your 
life in great and perilous enterprises ? " 

" One cannot avoid one's destiny," he answered. 
" He who is called cannot resist. Besides, human 



MADAME BE BEMUSAT. 273 

pride finds the public it desires in the ideal world 
which is called posterity." 

Madame listened attentively. She was inter- 
ested, but not convinced. She regarded the 
emperor questioningly. " I shall never be able to 
understand," she declared, " how a man can expose 
himself to every sort of danger for posterity's sake 
merely, while in his heart he despises the men of 
his time." 

At this Bonaparte spoke up quickly. " I do not 
despise men, madame," he protested. " That is a 
thing you must not say. I do not despise men, and 
I particularly esteem the French." 

At his abruptness Madame de Remusat could 
not repress a smile. It was as though, having for- 
gotten himself a moment, he had expressed himself 
too frankly, and suddenly bethought him of the 
proper thing to say. 

He saw the smile, guessed its meaning, and 
answered it. He liked to be understood. He 
drew near and pulled her ear. The act did not 
surprise madame ; she knew it meant that he was 
in a good humor — therefore, she did not draw 
away, but received it like a courtier, smiling still. 
"Mind, madame," he repeated, lifting a warning 
finger, "you must never say that I despise the 
French." 

When next she was alone with her husband, 
Madame de Remusat drew a long sigh. Monsieur 
de Remusat asked her what it meant. Then she 



274 MADAME BE BEMUSAT. 

expressed to Hm the feeling of oppression which 
all this cynicism gave her. Life at court was 
brilliant, but so unsatisfactory, she declared ; there 
was no pleasure in it. She lifted her glance to her 
husband. Her dimples, showing, gave to her face 
that " sweet and arch " expression that so became 
her. "Indeed," she said, "the only pleasure I 
have ever found has been in our own home with you 
and mother and the boys." 

This was Madame de Remusat. She retained in 
the midst of scenes the most dazzling the simple 
tastes of her girlhood. When a woman of the 
world, experienced, influential, a social power, her 
chief interests were still domestic. Her mind 
reverted fondly to that pleasant Montmorency 
valley where leisure, seclusion, intellectual com- 
panionship and all the benefits of a happy home 
life had been hers. 

She had gone first to that Montmorency valley a 
young girl, with her mother and her sister, when 
the Revolution issued its decree against the nobles 
and Paris was no longer habitable for them; for 
that lurid hue, which the Revolution cast on all 
surrounding objects, had colored Madame de Rdmu- 
sat's early youth. Before it came, the little Claire, 
so she was called, was living peacably in Paris 
with her parents. Monsieur and Madame de Ver- 
gennes, and her younger sister Alix. Her father. 
Monsieur deVergennes, was Master of Requests and 
later Director of the Vingtiemes, the tax on property. 



to' 

5' 



MADAME I)E It EMU SAT. 275 

He was nephew to that Comte de Vergennes who 
had been minister to Louis XVI. His family was 
an ancient one, aristocratic and illustrious. 
Madame de Vergennes, his wife, was a bright, prac- 
tical, kindly woman of high principles and keenly 
vigorous mind. She superintended the educatiou 
of her daughters. In that liouse in the Rue Saint 
Eustache where they lived, a large room was set 
apart as a school-room for the little girls. There 
their governess instructed them in book learning' 
and they were also taught the " frivolous arts 
music, dancing, and drawing. Now and then, as 
they grew older, they were permitted occasional 
peeps at the big world. They were treated to a 
visit to the opera or a presentation at a ball. 

At length the fateful year of '89 arrived. Monsieur 
de Vergennes took his place among the electors. 
Later he was made a member of the Council of 
the Commune and a mayor of the National 
Guard. He drifted resistlessly into the current of 
revolutionary madness. His wife, who was more 
prudent, more far-seeing, more prophetic than he, 
sought to restrain him. He listened to her when 
it was too late. He died on the scaffold in '94. 

It was on the morrow of this tragedy in their 
home that Claire and her mother and little sister 
sought a refuge at Saint Gratien in the Montmo- 
rency valley, that fair land celebrated by Rousseau. 
Unprotected and in straightened circumstances, 
they were much in need of a devoted friend. 



276 MADAME BE BEMUSAT, 

Such a friend they had in Augustin Laurent de 
Remusat. This young man, afc the outbreak of 
the Revolution, had come to Paris as deputy from 
Aix. On his arrival in the city he had made the 
acquaintance of Monsieur de Vergennes, and had 
been a frequent visitor at the home of the Vergen- 
nes. He had lived quietly and comparatively 
unknown through those stormy years. When the 
widow de Vergennes and her two daughters emi- 
grated, it was his wish to follow them. His 
services, his kindness, his loyal affection had 
rendered him indispensable to the little family. 
Madame de Vergennes could not oppose his wish. 
He went with them to Saint Gratien. 

One forms a pleasant picture of that family 
circle at Saint Gratien. There, the centre of the 
group, was Madame de Vergennes, engaged in 
some piece of sewing for one of her girls, now 
relating a " piquant storj^" now " stimulating " 
conversation by some interesting discussion, always 
practical, cheerful, merry — an ideal mother. Of 
the two girls, Claire, who at the time of the migra- 
tion to Montmorency was fourteen years of age, was 
the more serious. The little Alix was lively and 
animated, much given to flights of fancy. Claire 
was a grave, studious maiden, very womanly for 
her years, and something of a philosopher withal. 
Monsieur de Remusat was with them so constantly 
that he, too, had come to be considered one of the 
family. Social, agreeable, courteous, he was a 



MADAME BE BEMUSAT. 211 

delightful companion. He chatted with the mother ; 
he helped the daughters with their lessons. And, 
more and more frequently, as the months went by 
and he and Claire sat side by side at the round 
table in the lamplight, the book of Horace lay 
unnoticed between them. They spoke of other 
things than Latin. Meanwhile, the eyes of Madame 
de Vergennes rested contentedly upon them. She 
did not anticipate, yet, when she saw the very 
natural love which congeniality of tastes, intimacy, 
solitude, and misfortune were engendering, she was 
not surprised or sorry. She knew that her daugh- 
ter's heart, though young, was ardent, sensitive, 
emotional. She was glad to give it into the keep- 
ing of so good a man as Augustin de Remusat. 

Claire de Vergennes was married at the age of 
sixteen to a man eighteen years her senior. He 
was her director and instructor as well as husband. 
There at Saint Gratien, in the same house 
with Madame de Vergennes and Alix, Monsieur 
de Remusat and his young wife resided. 
Their life after their marriage, as before, was quiet 
and secluded, given to the pleasures of the country 
and intellectual pursuits. Claire was a mother at 
seventeen, and her education, as it has been phrased, 
continued " under the tuition of her husband and 
at the cradle of her son." 

Not far from Saint Gratien, at Sannois, in that 
same lovely Montmorency valley, lived Madame d' 
Houdetot and her husband and Monsieur de Saint 



278 MADAME BE BEMUSAT. 

Lambert. These were neighbors worth having. 
A friendly intercourse existed between the two 
households, and when Saint Gratien was sold, it 
was to Sannois that the Vergennes and the R^mu- 
sats removed. A way of communication was cut 
through the gardens of the two estates, and the 
ties of hospitality and friendship were even closer 
than before. 

It was in the salon of Madame d' Houdetot that 
Madame de Remusat was first introduced to fash- 
ionable and philosophic society. While Paris was 
yet in turmoil, peace reigned here, and the 
courtesies and amenities of life still flourished. 

For Madame d' Houdetot herself, Madame de 
Remusat entertained a sincere affection. She 
appreciated her charms, her talents, her cultivated 
tastes, and that benevolence and perennial youth- 
fulness of mind which made Madame d' Houdetot 
so much beloved. And yet Madame de Remusat 
was discreet in her affection. She recognized 
the danger of the elder woman's example. She 
recognized it, but it did not attract her. She 
spoke thus to her husband : " Madame d' Houdetot 
tells of past joys, of memories and regrets, with a 
sort of childishness and ignorance of evil, which 
seems to make her excusable. Any woman who 
was hesitating between love and virtue would do 
well to shun her ; she is a hundred times more dan- 
gerous than an utterly corrupt person. She is so 
peaceful, so happy, so free from anxiety as to the 



MADAME BE B EMU SAT. 279 

next life. It would seem that she trusts to the 
words of the Gospel, ' Her sins, which are many, 
are forgiven; for she loved much.' Do not fear, 
however, that the sight of this tranquil old age 
following on an erring youth will upset my prin- 
ciples. I do not pretend to be stronger than others, 
but I feel that my virtue is secure because it is 
founded on happiness and love. I can be sure of 
myself because I love you and am beloved by 
you." 

Another intimacy than this with Madame d' 
Houdetot, and one that was destined to prove more 
influential in the lives of the Remusats, was that 
with Madame Bonaparte. She had been known to 
Madame de Vergennes as the widow of General 
Beauharnais, and later, at Malmaison, as the wife of 
that illustrious hero who was winning glory in the 
East. Madame Bonaparte, who always had need 
of confidants and who passionately desired sym- 
pathy, attached herself affectionately to Madame 
de Vergennes and her young daughters. Later, 
as the wife of the First Consul, Madame Bonaparte 
rose to a position of power. Meanwhile order had 
been restored in Paris. From the obscurity and 
poverty of their provincial home, the eyes of the 
young couple at Sannois turned wistfully to that 
field of opportunity and preferment. Then Mad- 
ame Vergennes bethought her of her former friend, 
and applied to Madame Bonaparte for a position 
for her son-in-law. Madame Bonaparte received 



280 MADAME BE EEMUSAT. 

her graciously. She promised more than was 
expected, more even than was desired. In a very 
little while Monsieur de Remusat was appointed 
Prefect of the Palace and Madame de Remusat 
Lady-in-waiting to Madame Bonaparte. In their 
modesty Monsieur and Madame de Remusat 
shrank from accepting such distinction, yet they 
dared not refuse. Truly it has been said that some 
have greatness thrust upon them. 

At the time when Monsieur and Madame de 
Remusat were drawn to the service of Napoleon, 
his court was just beginning. Its dignitaries were 
almost exclusively military. A name such as 
theirs, honorable and illustrious, and associated 
with the old regime, was one which the First Con- 
sul was proud to put upon his list. He showed 
them signal favor. In those early years he was at 
his best, young, natural, and as yet unspoiled by 
fortune. He charmed and dazzled Monsieur and 
Madame de Remusat. Brought suddenly into the 
blaze of his glory, their eyes were blinded. They 
served him gladly, admiringly, unquestioningly. 
But later, as he became more and more confident, 
grew arrogant, and abused his power, they with- 
drew that absolute devotion. Little by little they 
were disillusioned. They found their hero not the 
hero they had thought him. It was the death of 
the Duke d' Engheim which began the work of 
disenchantment. That was a great grief to them. 
Madame could not speak of it for her tears. There- 



MADAME BE BEMUSAT. 281 

after their attitude was one of silent criticism. 
Napoleon felt their disaffection, and no longer 
showed them that marked attention which he had 
first awarded. Then their allegiance to the 
Empress Josephine, which continued unchanged 
after the divorce, removed them rather farther from 
his patronage. And, finally, their friendship for 
Talleyrand brought upon themselves a reflection of 
that minister's disgrace. They did not fall from 
favor, but they gradually ceased to be there. 

For a long while, however, they were on the top 
wave. They formed a prominent and important 
part of a life that was overflowing with interest. 
They could not but be amused. Madame espe- 
cially was entertained by the play going on about 
her. She was young, — twenty-two at the time of 
her appointment, — earnest, and enthusiastic. 
Things appealed to her imagination. She took an 
impersonal view of people and events ; she was 
interested in a disinterested way. Every evening 
she noted down the occurrences of the day. She 
compiled a valuable record which, alas, was not 
destined to survive its time. 

This court life, its opportunities for conversation 
and experience, was a sort of literature to her — a 
book which she enjoyed reading. Of course her 
attitude was one which was sure to be misinter- 
preted. Ambitious people thought her ambitious. 
Selfish people accused her of intrigue. The unin- 
telligent were a bit afraid of her ; they could not 



282 MADAME BE BEMUSAT. 

forgive her for having opinions and views which 
they could not appreciate. She was pedantic they 
said. The name " savant," as applied to her, was 
spoken by others than the emperor. Neverthe- 
less, Madame de Remusat was a success. She 
was a woman of intelligence. She soon 
learned to adapt herself to her position. She 
acquired ease and address, and developed a talent 
for conversation. She was quick to perceive a 
thought; she listened wel] ; she could follow a train 
of reasoning with understanding ; she had the gift 
of the right word. It was for reasons such as these, 
no doubt, that Napoleon and Talleyrand liked to 
talk with her. 

One can easily see that she was an excellent 
guide for Josephine Bonaparte. Despite her sweet 
and gracious disposition, the empress was jealous, 
frivolous, and flighty. She needed the support of 
a calm and prudent mind. Such support Madame 
de Remusat could give. None knew this better 
than the emperor. Very often he was heard to 
say, " The empress is well advised." 

The petty ambitions and dissensions of court life 
greatly amused Madame de Remusat. One was 
joyous or one was depressed, accordingly as one 
was elevated to some new dignity or disregarded. 
All this seemed very absurd to Madame de Remusat, 
but not at all surprising. One dav she herself 
was in very good spirits, jesting with a company 
of friends. One of Bonaparte's aides-de-camp ac- 



MADAME BE REMUSAT. 283 

costed her. What new honor had been conferred 
on her, he queried, curiously. Madame regarded 
him a moment in bewilderment. Then, perceiving 
his meaning, she laughed heartily. " Do you fancy," 
she retorted, " that at Saint Cloud one must always 
be in tears if one is not a princess ? " 

After the divorce and the empress's retirement 
to Malmaison, the duties of Madame de Remusat 
were lightened. She was able to spend much of 
her time in her own home. She was happy there, 
and she was much visited. Among her frequent 
guests were Monsieur Suard, the Abbe Morellet, 
Monsieur Guizot, and she who afterwards became 
Madame Guizot, that is Mademoiselle de Meulan, 
Monsieur de Fontanes, Gerard, the painter, and 
even, it has been whispered. Monsieur de Chateau- 
briand. Indeed, the drawing-room in her house, in 
the Place Louis Quinz, legitimately takes its place 
among the salons of the empire. 

Later, under the Restoration, Monsieur de Remu- 
sat was appointed Prefect of Toulouse and after- 
wards of Lille. Thus, in their middle life, as in 
their early youth. Monsieur and Madame de Remu- 
sat enjoyed together the pleasures of provincial 
life, its retirement, its quiet, and its opportunities 
for study and reflection. For Madame de Remusat, 
too, it afforded a chance to indulge her literary 
talent. 

For many years she had been an unsuspected 
author. In her girlhood she wrote essays and 



284 MAD AMU BE BEMU8AT. 

novelettes, and made metrical translations of the 
" Odes of Horace." After her retirement from offi- 
cial life she wrote her " Memoirs of the Empire." 
In her mind, and sometimes half confided to paper, 
were numerous romances. Some of these she com- 
pleted. Of these, "The Spanish Letters," begun 
in 1804 at the Imperial Court and published in 
1820, was the most important. It savored of her 
court life ; its characters suggested people of her 
acquaintance ; it had the touch, the tone of reality, 
and, in addition, a vein of refined sentiment. Both 
worldly and romantic, it was not unlike the author 
herself. Madame de Eemusat's last literary labor 
was her volume on the " Education of Women." 
She looked into the future, to the new order that 
was rising on the foundations of the old, and 
pictured the ideal woman who, she hoped, might 
come. She was a mother when she wrote, and her 
interest was quickened by the thought that this 
future which she contemplated would be the 
present of her son. 

And now we come to that fact in the career of 
Madame de Remusat which is, perhaps, its most 
charming — that is her motherhood. In a brief 
essay on " Coquetry," Madame de Remusat ex- 
presses herself thus : 

"It is in the years between thirty and forty 
that women are commonly inclined to coquetry. 
Younger, they please without effort, and by virtue 
of their very ignorance. But when their spring- 



MADAME DE BEMUSAT. 285 

time has passed, they begin to employ address in 
order to retain the homage which it would be pain- 
ful to renounce. Sometimes they attempt to adorn 
themselves with a semblance of that innocence to 
which so much of their success is due. They are 
wrong. Every age has its advantages as well as 
its duties. A woman of thirty has seen the world, 
and has knowledge of evil, even if she has done 
nothing but good. At that age she is ordinarily 
a mother. At this crisis she must have the cour- 
age to unclasp the zone of Yenus. Consider the 
charms whereof the poet declares it to be composed. 
Are they the ornaments of virtuous maternity ? 

" ' There Love, there young Desire, 
There fond Discourse, and there Persuasion dwelt, 
"Which oft enthralls the mind of wisest man.' 

" But what strength it requires to be the first to 
lay aside an ornament like this ! With a little 
care, it would still so well become the wearer ! 
Yet, a few more years, and the zone will fall of 
itself, refusing to deck charms that are already 
withered. Then how would one blush at the sight 
of it, sadly repeating like the Greek courtesan who 
consecrated her mirror to eternal beauty, ' I give 
thee to Yenus, for she is always fair.' 

" Is it not wise to provide in advance for our 
inevitable disappointment by anticipating it with 
courage ? The sacrifices which reason dictates 
have this advantage, — • that the effort they cost is in 



286 MADAME BE REMUSAT. 

itself their reward. Oh, mothers, gather your 
children about you early. Dare to say when they 
come into the world that your youth is passing into 
theirs. Oh, mothers, be mothers, and you will be 
wise and happy ! " 

When Madame de Remusat wrote thus she was 
thirty-two years old, an attractive woman still. 
She might have kept her girdle longer without 
impunity, and yet she has never been so fair, it 
seems, than at this moment when she abandons it. 
Nothing is wanting to her adornment, since she 
wears so well that " majestic dignity " in praise of 
which she speaks. 

Madame de Remusat was the mother of two 
sons. Of Albert, the younger of the two, it has 
been said: "His faculties never completely de- 
veloped ; he was a child to the end." To this son 
she gave tender compassion and devoted care. 
But it was Charles, the eldest, who satisfied her 
hopes, who realized her ambitions, who filled her 
heart. She was but seventeen years his senior ; 
their tastes, their feelings were delightfully con- 
genial and intimate. They were not merely 
mother and son, they were brother and sister, too. 
She advised and encouraged him ; she put wise 
thoughts into his head, the value of her experience. 
In return he renewed her youth, for how could 
she grow gray, in staid and emotionless maturity, 
while she looked at the world through his ardent 
young eyes ? 



MADAME BE REMUSAT. 287 

It is pleasant to overhear this mother and son 
chatting confidentially together. They were the 
best of comrades, yet, on his part there was 
always filial reverence, and on hers maternal 
care. 

" My dear boy," she writes to him at his school 
on the advent of his sixteenth birthday, " I follow 
you step by step in all your studies, and I see you 
are full of work during this month of July which 
I am passing so monotonously. I know prefcty 
well, too, all you say and do on Thursdays and 
Sundays. Madame de Grasse tells me of yoar 
little talks, and amuses me with it all. For 
instance, she told me that the other day you had 
praised me to her, and said that when yon and I 
talk together you are sometimes tempted to think 
me too clever. But you need not be checked by 
any fear of that, for you, my dear child, have at 
least as much wit as I. I tell you so frankly, 
because that gift, although an advantage, needs 
many other things to support it, and therefore you 
may take my words rather as warning than as 
praise. If my conversation with you often takes a 
serious turn, you must impute it to the fact that I 
am your mother, and have not relinquished that 
r61e. When I need no longer advise and warn 
you, we shall talk together quite at our ease, inter- 
changing our reflections, our remarks, and our 
opinions on everything and everybody quite 
frankly, without fear of vexing each other ; in fact, 



288 MADAME BE BEMUSAT. 

with all sincere and intimate friendship which, I 
believe, may perfectly well exist between a mother 
and a son. There are not so many years between 
us as to prevent me from sympathizing with your 
youth, or sharing some of your feelings. Women's 
shoulders wear young heads, and in the head of a 
mother one side is always just the same age as her 
child's. 

" Madame de Grasse told me also that you want 
to amuse yourself during these holidays by writing 
some of your notions on various subjects. I think 
you are right. It will be interesting for you to 
read them again in a few years. Your father would 
say I want to make you a scribbler like myself, — 
for he does not stand on ceremony with me, — but 
I do not care. There can be no harm in setting 
down one's thoughts, in writing for one's own self 
alone, and I think both taste and style will be 
formed in this way." 

Then she goes on to speak of still more intimate 
matters. She contemplates his character; she 
dwells especially on one point — his behavior 
to others. 

"You are polite," she says, "more so, indeed, 
than is customary at your age ; you have a pleas- 
ant manner in addressing people, and you are a 
good listener. Do not let this last quality slip. 
Madame de Sevigne says that appreciative silence 
is a mark of superior sense in young people. ' But, 
mother, what are you driving at ? You promised 



MADAME BE BEMUSAT. 289 

to point out a fault, and hitherto I see nothing like 
one. A father's blow turns aside. Let us come 
to the fact, my dear mother.' So I will, my son, 
in a moment. I have a sore throat and can only 
speak slowly. Well, then, you are polite. When 
you are asked to do something which will gratify 
those you love, you consent willingly ; but when an 
opportunity of so doing is merely pointed out to 
you, natural indolence and a certain love of self 
make you hesitate, and, when left to yourself, 
you do not seek such opportunities for fear of the 
trouble they may entail. Can you understand 
these subtle distinctions ? While you are still 
partly under my authority I can influence and 
guide you, but you will soon have to answer for 
yourself, and I would wish you to think a little 
about other people, notwithstanding the claims of 
your own youth, which are naturally engrossing." 

Thus did Madame de Remusat perform the role 
of mother. She mixed praise and blame. She 
did not scold, she reasoned. She did not com- 
mand, she pointed out the way. One cannot 
wonder that she endeared herself infinitely to her 
son, and, dying, bequeathed to him " a life-long 
sorrow." 

The death of Madame de Remusat occurred in 
1821, when she was forty-one years of age. For 
her there was no decline. She died in the fulness 
of her powers. She was devoted to the welfare 
of her home, busy with her literary labors, inter- 



290 MADAME BE BEMU8AT. 

ested in her husband's official career in the prov- 
inces, and in that literary success which her 
talented son was already winning for himself in 
Paris. She was still of the world, and in close 
sympathy with it. And never had she been more 
charming. She had grown easy, sprightly, merry, 
with her years. She had brought earnestness into 
society, and from society had derived freshness and 
spontaneity. 

Madame de Remusat faced the mysterious beyond 
with awe and trepidation. She reviewed her life. 
Her charities had been trifling ; she had made few 
sacrifices ; her life was almost empty of good 
works. She was " puffed up " with her felicity ; 
proud of her titles of daughter, wife, and mother. 
She had not hated, because her heart was full of 
love. She had been virtuous, because she had been 
happy. With such a record, how would God re- 
ceive her? The Abbe Duval calmed her troubled 
mind. Her happiness was a proof of God's love 
he said. Religion very often demanded a life of 
action. She had served God in the world. There 
was her charity, her sacrifice, her work of piety. 

It is a fitting encomium, this of the Abbe 
Duval's. Let us take leave of Madame de Remusat, 
honoring her as he honored her, declaring with his 
voice, "She served God in the world." No 
epitaph could be found sweeter or more true. 



, 1904 



